Gundam Wing: Ended Waltz
by Qasur Zephlar Exlarr
Summary: A sequal to Endless Waltz, with all your favorite pilots and more! Just few more chapters to go. Chapter 6 is now up!
1. Mystery Awaken

Gundam Wing: _Ended Waltz_

By: Qasur Zephlar Exlarr

Prologue:

In the year AC 211, 'the War' has been totally forgotten. Erased from history. Removed from books, computers. And all remnants of the war were supposedly destroyed. Many things still remained that were too small to get rid of. The idea of living in peace was now a reality. Which it has been for the last 15 years. At least, ever since the last attempt of a world takeover on New Year's Eve of AC 196. It was not common for people to run into mobile suits still. They were still in existence in the hands of thieves, bandits, and some military bound countries.

The infamous gundam pilots have escaped to their new lives in this world of peace. After a year of hiding, Heero eventually returned to Relena. He had to think about things and consider what to do since he was now no longer needed in a peaceful world. One day it finally hit him, he needed to be by Relena's side to comfort her. He knew she would worry for him and wonder if he was alive. He still lives a private life of his own, but he always comes to spend time with his son and Relena. He never proposed to her, but they did have a child. Heero Jr. is his name. He was an exact copy of his father. He even had the same quiet attitude. Relena is still the Vice Foreign Minister.

As soon as the war had ended, Duo returned to Hilde. They lived happily together through the next hear. After the New Year's Eve War, Duo proposed to Hilde. He knew that any day another war could break lose and he didn't want to die without marrying her. Duo started to realize how dear his life was after all. The

God of Death was vulnerable, at least in heart. Soon they had a little boy named Solo. Duo calls him chibi shinigami though, mainly because he sees a mirror image of himself. He's a little version of Duo. Including his small braided hair, which is barely long at all. Solo eventually grew it out to be just as long as his father's when he was his age. A few years later, they had their second child, Rei. She doesn't look quite like her mother, but she has her eyes. She has a light blue tint to her darkened hair. Duo took over as the owner of the Sweeper Group. He and his family are quite wealthy. They collect all the remnant pieces of mobile suits and scrap metal from outer space and sell it to businesses that lack in materials.

Trowa returned to Catherine at the circus. They live together performing throughout space and all around the earth. Catherine had adopted a baby from one of Quatre's many sisters during the year before the New Year's Eve War. Quatre's sister was very ill after she had the child. Her husband had passed away while working on a mining asteroid for the outer-rim colonies. Near the end of the week she gave birth to her daughter, she had passed away also. Trowa and Catherine together are raising Aria. She seemed to like the circus at an early age, and she was eager to learn how to do tricks in the circus.

Quatre moved back to the desert. He ran the Winner family corporation from its new headquarters in the Arabian Desert. A few years after the New Year's Eve War he ran into Dorothy in Luxembourg. After a few more years, they married and now live in Luxembourg. A year later, they had a little girl, whom Quatre named Iria. His little girl looked like his sister who passed away aboard the space shuttle when he tried to save his father. Dorothy and Quatre started a pacifist school as a model of Relena's during the war. Quatre had his father's business relocated yet again to Luxembourg. The Maganacs are still loyal to their master and spent years rebuilding their country.

Wufei and Sally Po live together in Moscow where they are the leaders of the Preventor's agency. Sally Po and Wufei had a child. Wufei always considered women weak, so he started teaching his daughter, whom he calls Nataku, how to fight when she was old enough to walk. Wufei and Sally Po never got married, but they do live together with their daughter in Moscow. She goes to the agency every day and works with her parents. She has long, black hair that she always keeps in a ponytail. She usually wears either a black gi or a white one wherever she goes.

Chapter 1: Mystery Awaken

Duo awoke in his bed. He threw his legs around the edge of it and sat up. He turned and saw Hilde still asleep snug under the blanket. He got up and walked over to the blinds and peered through them. He squeezed his eyes shut as the bright California sunlight blinded him. He yawned, stretching his arms out wildly. He walked downstairs and into the kitchen. He looked out the window above the sink and saw Solo getting onto his bike. He looked over at the microwave and noticed it was almost 10:30. Good thing it was a Saturday, or he and Hilde would have been late opening up the shop.

Duo had just come back from a 3-month journey across the Pacific Ocean. His family stayed home during his trip. He moved his base of operations to the earth. Neither him nor Hilde had ever lived on earth, and Hilde had never been there. Duo went out on the huge barge to dredge and look for old mobile suit parts, and other treasures they could find and bring back to New Edwards. The city brought back many memories for Duo. It was where the Gundam pilots had first met. It was also where Heero had accidentally killed the Alliance pacifists during the coup de' tat. The nearby base had been closed and anything usable was moved to better facilities for building. Most equipment was destroyed.

Duo poured a cup of hot coffee and started walking back upstairs. His early morning clumsiness caused him to stumble and spill some coffee on his right foot. "Ah! Dammit!" he yelled aloud. He went to the bathroom and put his coffee on the counter and wiped his foot off with a cold, wet towel. He tossed the dirty towel in the hamper and went to check on his daughter. He slowly slid the door open and she was stirring in her bed. "I knew it… I woke her up," he said in a low voice before shutting her door.

He returned to his bedroom and Hilde was just stretching as she stood up. He set his cup down on the table near the door and went up behind Hilde and wrapped his arms around her. "Good morning babe," he said as he kissed the back of her neck. She turned around and placed her hands over his shoulders and gave his a small kiss. "You woke me up," she said in morning playfully. "Oh, and what are you going to do about it?" he said with a mischievous grin on his face. Hilde pinched him on the neck. "Ow! That hurt," he said before one of his hands started to tickle her in her stomach. When he did she fell limp in his arms. She screamed and pulled away from him and ran into the bathroom. "No fair!" Duo said to her. She laughed. "I'm not a fair woman!" she said to him as she regained herself. "What time is it, dear?" Hilde asked from inside the bathroom. "It's around 10:45. Rei is still asleep and my little shinigami is out riding his bike," he said to her. "Oh, really, that late?" she replied. "I guess I kept us up too late last night," Duo said chuckling. "You my Maxwell, the God of Death… and sleepless nights," she said back to him while getting undressed to take a shower. She left the door open and Duo noticed that cute little backside of hers that he always liked. "And you're my Angel of Death, the one who begs for those sleepless nights," he reminded her. She turned and looked at smiled at him before stepping into the shower. It wasn't him who was in the mood last night, but he wouldn't deny her what she wanted. "I'll be downstairs in the living room watching the news," Duo said to her before leaving the room, grabbing his coffee on the way out. Hilde was getting dressed for the day.

Solo came riding home about noon. He busted into the house all hot and sweaty from riding around. "Mom, what's for lunch?" he asked his mother behind the counter in the kitchen. She looked up at him "I was in the middle of making some grilled cheese sandwiches," she said to him. "Your father is in the office outside working on some reports that he needed to fill out. Go tell him that lunch is almost ready," she had instructed her son, "and when you get back, make sure to wash your hands before you touch anything."

"Alright," he said as he walked out the backdoor and across the huge junkyard lot to the small office. He ran up the stairs and right into the small building out back.

"Really!? How many of them are there?" Solo heard his father say as he walked into his office. Duo was on the phone. "I see, I'll be right there!" he told the person on the phone as he slammed it down. He turned around to see his son standing there. "Oh, hey Solo, what are you up too?" he asked. "Mom wanted me to tell you that lunch is ready," he replied. "Go back and tell her that the barge is being attacked by thieves trying to steal mobile suit parts. I'm going there right now and tell her not to worry. I'll be back in a few hours. The God of Death has to take care of business…," he said running looking over at his son. "The God of Death? What are you talking about dad?" Solo asked him with pondering eyes. "Oh, nothing. It was just some jibberish. I've got to go. See you guys later!" he said to him before darting out of the office. "Come back… soon," he was trying to say when his father left waving goodbye.

Solo ran back up to the house and rushed through the backdoor. "Mom! Dad just left. He said the barge is being robbed by some mobile suit thieves or something," he told his mother as instructed. "Oh, no… I hope he'll be alright," she said with little panic in her eyes. "Mom," he said, "what are mobile suits?" She turned to her son. "Well, they are these robots that steal from people like your father," she said trying not to really tell him, "they are controlled by people. They kill and are really evil, if you ever see one, you'll know and I want you to stay away from any place that has them!" He looked suspicious and wanted to see them. He grabbed his sandwich and took a bite after telling his mom he'd be back later, while running out of the front door. He took another bite and held on to the sandwich with his mouth as he jumped onto his bike and started to fly down the road toward the ocean.

Solo was riding up a hill as fast as he could when he heard a loud explosion. He managed his way up to the top of the hill and then skidded to a stop and starred at what was going on. He saw a huge, humanoid machine that was covered in complete black fire a shot from a huge cannon. It was attached to the right arm. The left arm had a shield with an electric-like sword in its hand. "Whoa! That's so cool!" he screamed out. He watched as the black suit fired more at the other dull-Grey colored humanoid machines, which looked a lot alike the black one. He hit one of them and it exploded into pieces. There was a flying machine that would pop-up from around the cranes and other obstacles around the port and shoot at the big machine. "Is that what dad meant by a 'mobile suit'?" he said to himself. He kept watching as the battle continued.

"Don't make me have to kill you!" Duo screamed over the com unit to the remaining two pilots. "I've already killed your boss, so who is gonna be the next victim of the God of Death?!" he said with the fear of death piercing them in his words. The Aeries unit popped up over a crane from behind him and started firing away with its machine gun. "Take this you cheap mercenary!" the pilot said to him. Duo quickly fired the jetpack on the Leo and flew up in the air. He spun around and found the aeries flying at him firing. He tossed the shield up and it blocked some of the fire. He fired the jetpack again and the Leo suit took off toward the Aires. They were getting closer and closer… the Aires continued firing the machine gun, which hit the Leo's left arm and it exploded, but was still attached to the suit. Duo then re-ignited the saber and slashed the air-type mobile suit into two when he saw an opening pop-up. He turned off the booster pack and let the Leo drop to the ground. It landed with a very loud thud and the sound of metal clanging together could be heard as far as Solo was. The suit in the air exploded. Duo turned around and aimed the dober gun at the remaining Leo suit, who was slowly stepping backwards with its gun pointed downward.

"I don't like to repeat myself to those who try to kill me," he said to the scared pilot, "so I wont," He fired a blast from the dober gun toward the suit. The pilot screamed with fear. "This is what you get from trying to steal from me!" He screamed out as the Leo's pilot tried to move the suit, but was nailed in the side of the main body. There was a huge sparking hole in it before it exploded. Duo was sweating and breathing hard. Duo had not been in a battle with that many suits at once in over 15 years. He had to peel his hands off of the controls of the Leo. Then he had to fly it back over to the barge and land it on the deck. He opened the cockpit and jumped out. He ran to the controls of the deck and lowered it into the vessel where he could repair the damages to it later.

* * *

"Whoa…. That was… cool!!" chibi shinigami said wide eyed as he got onto his bike to go home. "I didn't know things like that existed. I've got to tell my friends!" he said as he thought of an exaggerated version of the story to tell from what he had watched. He looked over to the right from the top of the hill and noticed a huge facility. He saw a fifth mobile suit hiding over there. It was peering from behind a building. It was watching the battle, then turned to leave and it stumbled through the deserted place. It wasn't too far away. He decided to go take a look at what was there. He knew it would be dangerous, but he just had to go. He was very curious and wanted to find as many answers as he could.

* * *

Duo met some of his workers on the deck of the barge. They were amazed at his skills. "Hey, we need to get those parts, they are now ours. We'll just profit off of their mistake. Dare to steal from me," he said with fire still burning in his eyes, "and you will pay." He started to walk off of the deck toward is car. "Oh, yeah, don't touch that suit in there. I'll fix it myself," he said as he jumped down onto the dock and slowly walked to his car. He had a slick black mustang. It dated back to the old 67's (the AC 167's that is). He had the top down and was cruising home when he pulled out his glasses and put them on.

The back door opened and Duo walked in. "Hey babe! I'm back!" he said to her. "Oh, Duo! You're ok!" she said as she ran over to him and hugged him. "Hey, I'm alright! The God of Death will never lose!" he said to her looking into her eyes. She never liked how he kept fighting. "I wish those damn thieves would leave me alone. This is the third time in the past 2 months they've tried to steal from us. I took down 4 of them today," he shook his head. "I wish they would stop. I mean, an uprising would easily be crushed," he said sighing and wondering about people in this world today. "Well, I'm going to take a shower, I need cool down," he said as he gave her a kiss on her forehead and then walked upstairs to their room.

* * *

Solo came riding up to the entrance of the old facility. He hid his bike and jumped over the fence that was built to keep people out. He walked around for a little while looking at old jeeps and machines that were used long ago. He could barely make out "N… Edwa..ds ..as.." on the side of one of the jeeps. He lost site of the mobile suit he was looking at from that hill. He still decided to check out this place. After he approached the largest compound, he checked the door and it was unlocked. The hallways, which otherwise would have been dark, were lit from the lights above. He followed the lit path of lights deep inside. It was a twisting pathway with many turns, staircases, and some other locked doors, which were unlocked. It eventually led him to an elevator, where he got in and pushed the flashing button. The elevator creaked as it lowered deeper into the dark building. It opened into an enormous room. He barely made out what looked like cones standing up from under him. One of the larger ones that he could read was marked "RX – 77: High Explosive". He then realized he was inside of a huge missile storage room. Another one of them said "mK-82 - Nuclear Warhead" He didn't really understand some of the weapons from the past, but he that missiles were the most deadly of them all.

As the elevator went lower, he realized that the missiles were extremely huge compared from high above. The elevator stopped. It opened to reveal a grated path on a platform, still high above the bottom of the missile room. It extended through the rockets and missiles. He followed it as he had been. It came to an intersection, where he looked ahead and noticed a shut door. He looked to his right and the door there was shut also. Both of them had solid red lights. He looked left and there was a green light flashing on the door control. Still following, he went to the door and pushed the button. It opened into another lit hallway. The hallway progressively got wider and tall as he walked down it to an opening into a large room. He noticed someone sitting down at a computer, near the edge of the raised platform he was on. They pushed a button and he watched as lights turned on and showed a working factory of arms, legs, chest units, and heads being moved around on cranes and conveyer belts. He looked way over to his left and noticed the completed robots being moved into rows. There was hundreds of them standing there. He turned his attention back to the boy, when he noticed that he was holding a gun on him. "Who are you?" he asked, as he moved his wild brown hair out of his face. Solo threw his hands up and said, "Hey now! I'm just looking around, but, who are _you_?"

"I'm the one asking questions around here," he said raising the gun higher, "tell me your name and how you got here," he demanded. "Alright, that's fair enough," he said, "my name is Solo, but my friends and family call me chibi shinigami."

"And I followed the lit path here, which I assume that was your work," he said pointing at him. "Heh, the little god of death? Funny," the boy said as he lowered the gun. "Yes, I did light the way here. I found this base when I ran away," he began to explain. Solo reached behind his back and pulled a gun on the kid. "Now, tell me who you are?" he demanded. His braid was getting as long as his father's was. He tossed it behind his back with his free left hand. "Well, full of surprises are we, and," he said dropping the gun, "my name is Heero."

"Well, glad to meet ya' Heero," Solo said smiling. He felt he could trust him, so he put the gun behind his back again. Heero reached down and picked up the gun and set it on the table next to him. "Let me ask you, what are you doing here?" Heero said to him. "I was watching as my father battled some mobile suits at the nearby port. One of the suits was hiding, it looked like, over here, so I thought I'd come check this place out. I don't have to be home until a little awhile anyway," he said to him. Heero had already gone back to what he was doing on the computer. He was typing away and carefully taking in all he saw. "What is this place?" Solo asked. "It's an old military base. It was active in the year AC 195. I found it while running through the city and decided to have a look myself. I restored minor power to things such as lights, doors, and cameras. I didn't take a careful look as you approached and came inside," he told him.

"Yeah, well, my dad taught me a few things about getting into places unseen. Didn't you say that you ran away?" Shinigami asked.

"I did run away. My mother is way over protective and she never let me do anything," he started to say, "we always traveled for her meetings and I never got anytime to do anything that I wanted to. I have barely any friends and I am usually reading. In what time I have to myself, I use my computer to search and learn about things. I got mad when we arrived in Las Angeles because I was going to be confined at our hotel for 2 weeks, so I escaped and ran away."

"Interesting story. So, what is all of this? I think these are mobile suits, but I've only heard about them for the first time today," he said, as he told him all he knew. "They are mobile suits. From what I've been able to dig up, they are the Mercurius and the Vaye-Ate models. They have been set up on this mass production line back in AC 199. Someone left this going for a reason. I can't seem trace the exact location of the main terminal, but I know it's not at this base," he said before opening up another file. "Whoa… take a look," Heero said, as his eyes widened. He had found information pertaining to the gundams. He was scrolling through information on an enhanced mobile suit, when it's picture popped up. "It's.. It is just like it," he said very low, as in a whisper. "It's like what?" Solo asked him. "Oh, sorry. My father used to tell me stories when I was very little. He talked of these huge, humanoid machines that were waging war. One side vs. the other…" he was saying when a symbol appeared on the screen, "…OZ…that was the name in the story, but look, they were real."

"My father said that one was called OZ, the other was the Earth Sphere …Alliance," he continued to say spatially. He saw the Earth Sphere Alliance come up on the screen as well. It was a list of all major sides that were waging war during the time period of AC 195. There was OZ, the Earth Sphere Unified Alliance, White Fang, the Treize Faction, and the Gundam Pilots. "Gundam pilots?" Heero said talking to himself. It gave him a thought to ponder on, so he decided to pull up a search bar. He typed in "Gundams", then pressed the execute key. Immediately a list of 9 options appeared on the screen. He opened up the "Wing Gundam" file, because it was first, and saw the same picture from before. "I don't think my father was lying to me… I always thought he was just telling me a story, but now… It can't be true," Heero said.

"So, your dad knows what happened a long time ago. That's nothing to be concerned about. Maybe it's something that was meant to be forgotten," I told him. "Holy shit!" Heero said in a monotonous, low voice. "Take a look… it's my father," he said pointing to the picture. Solo was shocked at the picture. Heero looked just like his father, Heero Yuy, the pilot of the gundam Wing. "Whoa! You two look just alike! He was a gundam pilot?!" I said suprised. "I guess so. But, ah, I see now," he said reading a little bit of the information on the page.

"The gundams were created using gundanium alloy. A metal only found in space. It was nearly 3 times tougher than titanium, but it was rare. Looks like there is more, he had an upgraded version built by the pilot of the Gundam Sandrock. It's the Wing Zero. Man, these are intense machines," he said reading all the information from the screen.

"Hmmm, it's very interesting. They are pretty cool. Go and check on some of the others, I'm interested in learning about these. They look awesome compared to the ones I saw a little while ago," Solo said to Heero. He went back to the options menu and chose the next on the list, "Deathscythe". He opened it and it showed a picture of the shiny black gundam. It had a schematic view of his scythe out to the side of it. "Man, that one looks cool too! I guess that's its weapon. The color scheme is quite nice," Solo said. Heero noticed Solo's attire, it was all black."It was built for a pilot from the L2 Colony Cluster. His name is," Heero said as he scrolled down to the pilot information, "Duo Maxwell." Then a picture appeared on the screen. Heero turned around quickly to Solo. He was starring at the picture with eyes trained on his father. "That's my dad! What's going on here! Him, a gundam pilot," he said pointing to his father's gundam, "with that machine?!" he said, not shaking his gaze on the screen. "Our fathers were pilots of gundams! What a weird, and strange, coincidence, I can't believe this…" Solo said, still shocked.

"There is more information about him here if you wish to read. It says that he saved a woman, named Hilde, from the Mercurius and Vaye-Ate mobile dolls during the last battle of the big War. She helped bring valuable information to the pilots on the Peacemillion," he told him. "Mobile dolls? Hmm…" Heero said pondering. "Hilde, that's my mother. I guess that _is_ my dad!" Solo yelled out.

Shinigami looked at his watch. "Shit! I'm late. It's 5:38 and I was supposed to be home at 5:30. I'll never make it on time. It took me around 45 minutes to ride here as fast as I could. Took me almost 15 minutes to walk though this place, Damn!" he yelled. "Hey, are you just going to stay here? You could come home with me. Since you aren't going back to your parents, I don't suppose," he gestured toward Heero. "No. That will be fine. I found a place nearby that I can stay. They have food and shelter. I want to be near here so I can return often. Thanks for the offer though," he replied. "Alright, suit yourself. I'm outta here! Good meeting you! I'll probably come back sometime soon!" he said to Heero as he ran through the door across the huge room.

* * *

It was 6:23 and Hilde was eagerly waiting for her son to arrive home. Solo darted up the driveway and into the garage with his bike. It was dark outside and he knew he was in for it. He walked through the door and his mother was there waiting. She had her hands on her hips, tapping her right foot, and was starring at him with eagle eyes. "Where have you been! You're almost an hour late coming home! And don't tell me you were with your friends, I called their houses. Where _did_ you go after lunch? Huh? Explain," Hilde barked out at him with rage. Duo entered the room out of the shadows of the dark hallway and was starring at him also. "You're in big trouble chibi shinigami… big trouble," he said swaying his index finger at him.

"I rode off to watch dad fight… I'm sorry. I didn't want to miss it. I was curious to as what those so-called 'mobile suits' were. I knew you wouldn't let me go if I asked, so I just left. I was going to say I was with my friends, but I guess I didn't get home early enough… I'm sorry," he said as he looked down toward the ground. "Afterward I just kept around the docks as watched them clean up some of the mess," he said lying to his parents again. "It got late and I forgot it was a long ride home and… I'm really sorry," he couldn't keep from saying he was sorry.

"You did what?!" Hilde screamed at him with fear in her eyes. She was scared, although he was all right. "It's too dangerous! I can't believe you did that!" she yelled at him. "Son… that was not the right thing to do. I don't think you'll need your bike for a few weeks. Also, I don't think it would matter since you can't leave the house any ways," Duo said to him. "I don't think the TV is going to work for you either, neither is the phone. So, how about you waltz upstairs and clean up your room and go to bed early," Duo said giving him his punishments. "Ye.. Yes, sir," he replied before sulking his way upstairs.

Duo turned to Hilde and gave her a hug. She wasn't smiling at the present situation. "This is not good. The news doesn't show pictures of the mobile suits anymore. They have been banned from any form of communication. I'm sorry that I didn't leave any easier, but they had already done quite a bit of damage of to the barge and only my suit was in use. They somehow had managed to damage the elevator leading down to the other two suits. I would have told you before leaving, but… I couldn't waste anymore time. Now our son knows more," Duo said shaking his head while in her arms, "and I wish he didn't. If he only I hadn't said anything to him…" Duo was saying before Hilde put a finger over his lips. "It'll be ok. I'm just frustrated that he did what he did. He could have been seriously hurt if he was anywhere near it. I know you didn't want them to find out, but it _will_ happen someday. We know that," she said to him. "Yeah, I know… but still…" Duo said to her, "we have erased the past. Let's try to keep it that way." She gave him a kiss."Duo, I'm just glad you and our son are ok. I don't like that you have to go out and fight like that… even if they can't use their suits, let them use yours," she mentioned to him. "I would, but I had a lock on the cockpit system that can only be opened with a keycard," he said holding up his black, word-less card. "I would have, you know that. I don't like to fight anymore myself, but I do to keep everyone safe," he said hugging her closer to him. "Well, at least it's over and I'm ok," he said to her. He stepped back from her and his stomach growled. "Eh, so, what's for dinner?" he said smiling at her.

She smiled back. "Oh, just some chicken casserole that I found in the recipe book. It was one of my mother's favorite's," she said then turned and ran into the kitchen, "and it's sill in the oven!" She pulled it out just in time before it burnt. "Phew… dinner is ready," she said. "I'll go tell the children that dinner is ready," Duo said to his wife before he ran upstairs. He came up to his daughter's room and opened the door. "Hey, sweetheart, dinner's ready," he told her. She turned and nodded toward him before getting up out her chair at her desk. She was extremely quiet and was always researching something. He gave her a hug as she was leaving her room. "You know I love you baby," he said to her. "And I love you too daddy," she replied while hugging him back. He watched her go down the stairs before going down the hall to his son's room. He opened up the door and Solo was sitting across his room looking out of the window. "Solo," he said, trying not to startle him, "what were you thinking earlier today?"

He turned around to his father. He didn't really want to talk to him, nor his mother, at the moment. "I don't really know dad… I … I just wanted to see what mobile suits were. I had never heard of them. From what you and mom said, they sounded cool," he told his father, "but… I'm sorry if I caused any trouble."

"It's alright. Nothing bad happened. Just don't worry about mobile suits. They are very dangerous and you saw what those people were trying to do. It's not right, and plain out wrong. Just don't ever talk about them and don't go riding near the barge anymore," he said giving him strict instructions. "After I heard what you did, I was afraid. I didn't want anything to happen to you because you're my son and I love you," Duo said to him from across the room. Solo just looked down at his floor. He knew he had done wrong. "Now, get cleaned up and come down and join us. Dinner is ready," Duo said before leaving his son's room.

Solo thought to himself for a bit, as he turned and continued looking out the window. "If only he knew what I now have learned about him. I still want to know more. Heero is still probably there reading up on everything at that military base," he thought, "and now I'm grounded here for 2 weeks. What fun," he said shaking his head. "I'll eventually go back, I want to learn about it all, everything. Learn my father's past," he said as he stood up and walked out of his room.

Chapter 2: Forged Secret


	2. Forged Secret

Gundam Wing: _Ended Waltz_

By: Qasur Zephlar Exlarr

Chapter 2: The Forged Secret

It's Saturday and it has been 2 weeks since Solo was first grounded. The circus has come to town. Duo said he was going to take them all to see it tonight. Solo wasn't into the circus really, but he could not tell his dad he wouldn't go. He was just anxious about returning to that military base near the ocean. He knew that Heero had been going there over the last two weeks.

"Everyone ready to go?" Duo asked, with his family sitting around the living room. "Yep, lets get going," Hilde replied to him. "Isn't this the same circus that Trowa is in?" Hilde asked him as they went outside to the car. "Yep. I can't wait to see him. It's been so long," Duo said to her. "Who is Trowa, dad?" Rei asked her father. "Oh, he's just an old friend of mine. He is in the circus," he told her. They all piled into the car. Duo backed out of the driveway and went on toward the circus.

About 20 minutes later, Duo pulled up to the big tent. Everyone hopped out of the car. "Well, here we are you guys. The circus," he said to them. "You know, it has been a long time since I have been to one," Hilde said. "This your first time to come here kids. It's a lot of fun. Lots of performances, animals, and clowns. You'll have fun! Trust me," he told them.

Duo had picked up some front row seats to the circus for his family. The circus started on time. The main lights went out as spotlights hit the center ring. The original manager of the circus had passed away and his son took as the new manager. He was dressed in his suit and had his microphone in his hand waving onto the crowd. He started by telling a bit about the circus and introducing the first act.

The circus had many wonderful animal tricks and performances done through the course of the night. Solo wasn't really too interested in the circus, but everyone else was having fun. His sister ate his cotton candy. The next act was a knife-throwing act with two clowns. Catherine walked out to introduce her daughter, Aria. She said that this was going to be her first time to do this trick for the public. She was a little bit nervous Solo could tell. She looked great to him. He smiled at her. She saw him looking at her and her eyes went wide for a moment. He was looking at her like no one else. She snapped out of her daze, then gave put on a small smile before turning to proceed with the act.

Trowa was going to be her target this evening. He had performed this trick numerous times before in front of many crowds. He had his half-clown mask on with a blue-white checkered shirt and green, baggy pants. Aria had just put on her blind fold and lifted the knife into the air. She then threw it and it hit the board behind Trowa, to the right of his head. She threw the next. This one hit to the left of his head, opposite the other. After she threw about another eight knives, Trowa was completely surrounded. Aria removed her blindfold as the crowd was going wild. She turned to bow and noticed Solo starring at her again. She started to wonder who he was. He bowed for the crowd and then left happily.

After the circus ended, Duo went to see Trowa. Hilde and the rest of his family followed him. "Hey, Trowa!" Duo yelled at him. Trowa turned around and gave him one of his rare smiles. "Duo," he said shocked. Duo walked up to him and gave him a handshake. "How are things man?" he asked. "They are just fine. Were you here for the circus just now?" he asked. "Yeah, my family and I came here. It was a great show," he replied.

Catherine walked over to Trowa and said hello to Duo. Aria was right behind her. She looked around and noticed that Solo was with them. He was turned around looking at the different animals and not really paying attention. "Hey, mom, I'm going to go look at some more of the animals, ok?" he asked her. "Sure, that's alright. Don't go to far away and don't try to touch them," she said to him. "Ok, I will be around there," he said pointed in a general direction. Solo walked off. He really just wanted to get alone.

"When I heard you guys were in town, I had to stop by and say hey. We'll have to go out for dinner sometime while you guys are here, my treat," Duo said to Trowa and Cathy. "Sounds good," Trowa said in reply. "I want you to meet my daughter, Aria," Catherine said to Duo. Aria came around from behind her and nodded to Duo. "Hey there, I'm Duo," he said to her. "I'd like you to meet my family. "This is my daughter, Rei, my youngest, and Solo, my son…" he said looking around for him. "Where is he?" he asked.

"Oh, he just went to look at some of the animals. I told him it was alright," Hilde informed Duo. "Oh, ok. Well, I guess you can meet him later then, my chibi shinigami," Duo said to them smiling. "It was good seeing you. We'll have to arrange those dinner plans. I'll give you a call," Trowa said. "Alright then, I guess Hilde and Cathy can arrange them," he said putting the new plans into Hilde's hands, like he has done before. They continued to talk for a little longer.

Solo was off looking at the lions in their cages. He wasn't keeping his distance like his mother told him. He crouched down up close to one of the lions in the cage. He put his hand on the page, as he crouched in closer to the sleeping animal. It stirred a little, but didn't wake. Suddenly, someone yanked on Solo's braid. He started to stand, while turning around yelling, "Oww… who pulled my braid!"

He stopped and just starred. There was the girl from the performance standing there smiling at him, about to giggle. His face went red. "H… hi…" he tried to tell her. "Hello," she said back to him. "What's your name?" Aria asked him. "Oh, it's Solo," he said, clearing his throat, "but my close friends and family call me chibi shinigami," he said happily, smiling like his father. "And you are, Aria, right?" he said asked her, rubbing his braid.

She nodded to him, while smiling. "You had a great performance out there tonight, you did good," he said to her. "Oh, thanks. It was my first time in front of a lot of people, I was kinda nervous. I guess I did all right though," she said. "You did great," Solo said back to her. "So, how long have you been in the circus?"

"I've been with the circus since I can remember. I didn't start to do anything until I turned 7," she said nodding. "This is my 10th year, this night, from starting to perform in the circus."

"Really, well, that's great. I just sit around at home and be lazy… or help my father organize the junk of parts in the backyard. Once in awhile we'll work on an antique car in too," he said to her. "It's fun and I get my out door exercise," Solo said trying to act like he had some muscle, which he did in fact, but not outstanding. Aria put her hand to her mouth and giggled at him. Solo just smiled and looked at her.

Duo was looking for Solo, when he stopped behind an animal cage to watch his son. "Heh, I thought he didn't like girls too much," Duo said. "Hey, wait, that's Cathy's daughter!" he said as he watched them, very intrigued.

"I guess I'll see you around then," he said to her. "Yeah, you will. We're going out to dinner some night," she replied. He smiled at the thought. "Then I guess I'll see you there," he replied. "I hope," she said. She looked around and knew it was getting late. "Well, I need to run along. My mom will be worried about me if I don't finish my chores before bed time," Aria said to him. "Oh, ok. Well, it was nice meeting you, I'll see you again soon," he said waving goodbye to her as she ran off behind him and disappeared behind a tent flap. He sighed, and began to breathe again, putting a hand behind his head, smiling.

Just then, Duo came walking around the cage toward him. "Hey, Solo, it's time to go. Where ya' been?" his fathered asked. "Oh, sorry dad. I was just looking at the animals," he said, sorta lying to his father. "Oh, ok. Well, let's go. I've got a big day in the morning. Also, later this week, we're going to go out to eat with Trowa, his sister, and her daughter," Duo said.

* * *

Duo did have a big day. He was shipping out his largest order of parts. Someone ordered an enormous amount of motors, small generators, and lots of large scrap pieces of neo-titanium alloy. Duo kept a watch on where his supplies went. He knew that only someone who wanted those parts needed to repair mobile suits, or build one.

Solo left early that morning and told his mom he would be back later that afternoon. Took the shortest path he could back to the abandoned military base. He didn't realize that it would pass by the circus. So, he decided to ride through it on his way. He came around a tent and saw her again. It was Aria. She was practicing more tricks for that evening. He got off of his bike and watched her by peering around the side of one of the tents.

Aria was busy trying to juggle 5 rings in her hand. She turned and saw Solo looking around the tent and she lost her concentration. The rings fell and hit the ground with the sound of metal clanging together. Solo laughed and took off to his bike. She smiled and giggled as she watched him ride off. Cathy saw who it was and gave her eagle eyes. "C'mon, start again," her mom said in a stern voice. "Yes ma'am," she replied and continued her practicing.

Solo came up to the wall he had jumped a few weeks earlier. He hid his bike in a better place this time before sneaking back inside the base. After a bit of time, he made his way down into the base. Right before he pushed the button to enter the room where he first met Heero in, a voice said, "So, you're back."

Solo knew who it was. "Go back to the intersection and take a left. I'll be in there," the voice said before cutting out. Solo did as he was told and turned around. He walked to the intersection leading to the three different doors. He saw that the one to the left had a blinking green light now. He walked up to it and pressed the button. The door hissed open.

Directly ahead of Solo were two, huge metal objects. He saw sparks coming from the one on the right. Then he noticed Heero up there. "Hey!" Solo yelled out to him. Heero set the torch down, then turned around and waved at him.

Solo ran over to an elevator and hoisted himself up to the platform that Heero was on. "What are these?" Solo asked Heero. Heero looked up at one of them, before saying, "They are the beginnings of mobile suits. I decided to build two of them. I thought you would want one," he said nodding toward the other hunk of upper-body super structure, "so I built the base over there." He turned to look at Solo, who was quite shocked.

"In the time I had, I was only able to build the super-structure to the main body. They will take time to construct," he said. "Oh, I have a folder down there by the computer terminals with all the information from the computer we were looking at. You might find it interesting," Heero said pointing down to the eight computers below them. "Ok, cool. Thanks," Solo said as his reply.

"So, you've been very busy since I left a few weeks ago. I see you did a lot," Solo said to Heero, as he read through the stuff Heero made for him, while sitting back in a char, with his feet propped up on a desk. "Yes. I started a day after you left. I wanted to see if I could make one first, then when I realized that I probably could, I jumped into the project. I found some base materials around here, but I had to order a shipment of gundanium alloy from an underground organization that still has some. It wasn't cheap, but I have the money," he told him.

"Oh, cool. How much did you get?" Solo asked him. "Just barely enough to complete one suit. I decided I'd combine it with the neo-titanium that I ordered from around here. Your father didn't have a problem selling it," he replied. "That was you that ordered all of that? I had to organize and dig up half of the components that you asked for! It was hard as hell to find half of those things lying around our junk yard!" Solo yelled at him. "My father is on to you, you know. At least not that you building anything, but he knows that someone needs these parts for a project like this. They were too specific to be used for anything less," Solo let him know.

"No problem. Its not like he knows what hey are for let alone where you are. He won't have a clue about it, plus he got paid, what does he worry about?"

"He doesn't want another war to break lose!" Solo said forming a fist with his hand. "My mother goes hysterically insane when war and fighting is mentioned. I don't think my father can stand it anymore, so it's more than getting money that he is interested in," Solo said to him with a stern voice. "Alright then…" Heero said, pretty much speechless.

* * *

Solo continued to study the information that came from the computers for the next two days. He was intrigued about it all. He liked the design of his father's gundam, so he decided to edit it. He noticed that Heero was re-creating his father's gundam, the Wing Zero custom. Heero had gone on and designed it so that it could have a neo-bird mode, which his father's lacked. He ran into the problem that he didn't have the files to create the twin buster rifle, which he saw the main schematics had. Heero read up on it and saw footage of the massive energy weapon. He decided to make minor changes around it and built on a heat-rod tail shield. He designed a double beam saber as its main weapon. To make sure he had a backup, he designed a double-barrel laser rifle. It had its own power source. Lasers drain too much power, so they usually could not be fired too many times before overheating. Heero knew this, so that is why he built a double barrel one. Each shot fired from the other barrel, this limited the heat problem and also could allow more firepower. He could use both at the same time if he wished too. Heero designed the rifle to lock into the inside of the Gundam's shield for storage.

Solo liked his father's gundam, like Heero liked his father's. He just guessed it ran in family blood. He smiled about it and continued his work. With some help from the computer and Heero, he was able to do a lot of changes. He liked the wing design, so he kept it. He removed the claw-like objects from the wrists of the arms. He designed a double-thermal warblade to be on both arms. They would ignite two; 5-meter long saber-like thermal weapons each. He had them directly connected to the gundam's power generator so he could give them maximum power while being used. He then re-designed the Deathscythe Hell Custom's main scythe weapon. It now has a double-beam scythe capable of reaching up to 50- meters in length. He added two more on the opposite end of the pole. This gives him great power on both ends and much more flexibility. He extended the length of the pole by almost half of its original length.

Solo replaced the head vulcans with two miniaturized laser cannons. They were also directly fed to the power generator. With the technology that was used to create the shielding system for the Mercurius gundam and Virgo mobile dolls, Solo designed them into the shoulder blades (literally blades), also built them into the spikes coming from the knees, and finally in the spikes on the feet. Together they provide minor protection to small energy weapons and some beam sabers.

As backup to gundam, which also included the stealth system and radio-jammer, he had two, meter-long beam sabers installed into the calves of the gundam. As one last resort, for you can see he's a very cautious person, he had 10 blinders installed. Each finger of the hand contains one. They were small devices that produced a huge bright light that blinded the enemy long enough for them to make an escape. Heero also decided to build them into his gundam's hands.

Solo spent more time designing things he wanted built on the gundam than Heero did. He later decided to remove the blinders and the two, short beam sabers in the calves. Instead he placed optional boosters in the calves to help with the foot boosters. He realized it was going to take a long time to build the mechas and didn't want to weigh things down with new stuff that was irrational to mobile suits and adding too much new stuff. They got started right away with Part 1. They needed to forge the metal they were going to use. Heero built the main bases from pure, gundanium alloy.

Solo and Heero took all the parts they had and melted them down. They were lucky to have such advanced machinery still in use at the abandoned base. Most of it was automated, but Heero reprogrammed a computer with a new program to let him use some of the machinery. Once completed, they were able to start on their mission. They made enough material to use for their gundams and a little left over for maybe one or two repairs.

* * *

Over the coarse of the next month, they helped each other build their gundams base bodies. Tedious work was involved in the electrical wiring and the computer systems. Heero even tore apart one of the suits from the other warehouse room while Solo was away to figure out how to do some of the wiring. He had taken many classes on electrical circuits, welding, plumbing, auto mechanics. He also had many computer classes that he took. His father didn't want him to be lazy like other kids were. Heero Sr. taught him how to program, make viruses, and hack.

"Damn, I didn't think it would take so much to build a robot," Solo said to Heero, who was halfway inside of a computer panel in the Neo Win Zero mobile suit. "Yeah, well," he said, smirking into a laugh, "it does."

"Well, at least you get a lot of time to work on it. My mom forced me to stay home for 9 days last month because she thought I was never home enough. Typical parents… boring," Solo replied shaking his head. Duo and Hilde were totally unaware. They just thought he spent a lot of time out messing with his friends.

"Yeah, well, I'm not listening to my parents right now," Heero said with a laugh, "but my mother would freak if she knew what I was doing. When I first started to lift weights and learn different styles of martial arts, she almost killed my father. He just shrugged at her… then later that week he taught me how to shoot, build, and repair guns; which blew her hat off for good," Heero said. He couldn't hold back the laugh that was coming the whole time.

"That's kinda cool. The only thing that my father taught me was how to use repair a wide variety of stuff, shoot and repair guns, pick locks, and get into places silently. He said they could come in handy sometime when I was older. My mother scorned him too, because she thought I'd become a burglar. She forced him to sleep on the couch for almost a week. I don't really care to steal I told her, because my father also taught me that everything I needed was myself and my life, but that didn't matter to her," Solo explained to Heero.

"Oh, well, continue programming that right arm motor. I want to get it working by the end of today," Heero said to him. Sometimes Heero would stop and joke around, but then he would always get serious about his work again for no apparent reason. He'd become a hard, cold-hearted person almost inside. He didn't always just work, but he and have a little fun and laughter.

Over the next few hours that day, Heero and Solo did get the right arm working. They even managed to complete the system for the left arm as well. Solo had to be getting home. He only had an hour to get here, and it normally took him that long. "Well, I've gotta run. See ya tomorrow Heero," Solo said lowering himself on the elevator, "we can get to working on fixing up my suit next time. Later," he said as he ran out of the large workroom.

* * *

In Moscow, Relena had just begun a meeting with the space delegates and the earth delegates. Mars had been colonized successfully over the last 15 years. She knew she could thank her brother for that. Many people who were from the colonies didn't like the plan to colonize Mars. Many of the outer-rim colonies rebelled against sending any transports to Mars, or accepting any from there. To keep their claim true, they set out a minefield between the outer-rim colonies and the asteroid belt.

"Welcome everyone. I hope your journey here wasn't too bad. As you know, we are here to discuss the Mars Project. It has come to my attention that you outer-rim colonies have placed mines between the colonies and the asteroid belt. I must ask," she said, " but why?" Relena said, sitting at the end of the huge table. 

"I'll answer that," said an older man, one of the many who first rebelled against the Mars Project. He was rubbing his short, white beard. He was a larger man and kept one of his eyes partially closed all of the time. "I don't like the Mars Project, obviously. The minerals and things brought in by their shuttles always force the prices of my rare minerals from asteroids down. Plus, my colony is now 25% used for shuttling their cargo and almost 20% of my cargo space is used to store their needs," he said, "I'm losing profits from my business by being their warehouse!" he said screaming. "If they want a warehouse, build a new colony! … But no, it's too expensive you say… heh," complained the old man, smirking, before he said something under his breath, "too expensive my ass…"

"I see your point. But can we just stop helping out the colonists on Mars? We can not just stop sending them supplies. They are not ready for a self-contained society. We've also found many of their new plants and minerals to be helpful in the medical industries and food industries. We can't just stop the trade altogether," she said to him. "Aren't we paying you to store their materials and to let those shuttles dock? I believe so. Are we not paying enough?" Relena asked him. She was furious already with what the colonists wanted.

"Hell no! I could make almost double what you are paying me now if I could get my materials sold! The only reason I still run your shuttle program now is because if I stop, I'll be cut off for good from many of the colonies that still purchase my materials… you know, the dedicated people… unlike the earth's citizens" he said, before being cut-off. "Stop that! The earth does buy many materials from outerspace!"

"Yes, but none from my colony!" he yelled back at her. "I guess it's because I'm too far away. I'm too expensive because I have the rare items… heh, just the same. You and all the other damn bloody colonies that didn't rebel!" replied the old man again before getting a 'here, here' from the other colony officials.

Relena had fire burning in her eyes. She couldn't stand that the peace in the colonies and the outer space was being eroded just because of one simple Project to help the earth, and mankind. "You leave me no choice then sir. I am here-by cutting off all lines of traffic with your colony. You will no longer be in our service. We also will no longer need your help with supplies from Mars. From what we will save from paying you, we'll use to create the Midway Twins," she said to him. She gathered the attention of others as well. "It's a design to build two new colonies that the Earth Sphere will use to do trade between Mars and the colonies. They have decided not to build it yet because of the expensive price. The last colony built, X-19999 has had many problems early on. We are just taking measures before jumping into things. One will be built on one side of the asteroid field and will trade with the colonies there. The other shall be placed directly on the other side, but further away and a little bit closer to Mars. It will be a stopping point for shuttles from Mars so they won't have to make such a hard journey," she said nodding. She filled relieved with the look in their eyes. "Does this suit you?" she asked with a stern voice, still keeping the I-control-you attitude up.

"You're cutting us off? Then I have no problem at all," the old delegate said happily, chuckling. "I don't mind it one bit then. It will keep my business running smoothly again," replied the old man. Relena starred at him before she continued, "Maybe you didn't understand it very well then. You will no longer be able to trade with any colony that is loyal to the Earth Sphere. That is, unless you coincide with us and cooperate. As it stands your colonies are under your 'rebellion' and will only work with each," she said, seeing anger come to the man's face. "Also, we will also be using Colony Z-11192 as our base of operations for the building. It's the oldest colony to date and is right between your colony and one of the other major rebelling factors'. I expect no cooperation from either of you," Relena replied to his response. She felt proud that she told down such an older man. She was just afraid a bigger rebellion might occur if she didn't try to isolate the current situation.

"What! You can't do that! I use that old colony as a warehouse for my supplies! That old geezer that ran the colony told me I could!" he yelled out frustrated. "How dare you cut off my transports from colonies that are loyal to the earth me?! Many of them provide most of my business!" the old man barked. His eyes were pure red. He was pissed. He slammed his fist on the table while grinding his teeth together.

"This meeting is dismissed," Relena said as she stood up, "If you wish to continue this, then agree our terms. We would fix the old colony, but that old thing can't support our needs and is in no condition to be repaired for the needs of the Mars Project. I hope that we can come to good terms gentlemen," Relena said, "Good day." Relena turned and exited the room. She wasn't in the happiest mood. She wished the meeting had gone better. She tossed her speech she prepared into the garbage as she walked down the hall to the shuttle awaiting her. She began to worry more and more about things. She hadn't received any mail from her sister-in-law, Lucrezia Noin, in many months. She guessed the rebels were terrorizing the transports and trying to piss off the Earth Sphere, which they were doing greatly at the moment.

* * *

The old man looked over at another delegate and nodded his head. The other man closed his eyes in agreement. He then turned and left the room silently. In a whisper he spoke on the phone to someone, "Start Operation X."

"Yes, sir," replied the woman on the phone. "Immediately!" the man yelled. "We will stop operations here within 3 hours. We'll then ship out what we can to the nearby two colonies. Major deployment shall be hard sir," she said to him. "What! Why? We'll leave through the large exit bay," he said to her in confusion. "Oh, it's not that sir, it's just that we have identified 3 Earth Sphere ships on course here. They have 6 mobile suits surrounding the colony," she told him. "Oh no…well… continue with Operation X, then start Operation Meteor Shower, now!" he demanded to her. "Yes, sir! Operations will commence immediately. Good Day," she said as she hung up the phone.

"Damn! Those damn … pacifists!" the old man yelled banging his fist against the wood wall before he turned and walked out at the opposite end, back into the meeting.

* * *

He walked back into the room where only a few delegates were left. He walked over to the white bearded man that was talking to Relena during the meeting. "Sir, we have a Priority Zero problem," he said. "What! What is it?" the man said wide-eyed. He had a shocked look cross his face. Normally he would only get shocked if a Priority One problem occurred. Normally meaning they could correct it and not be caught. This one he knew there was no way out. "There are 3 ships on their way to the colony and they have 6 mobile suits surrounding the colony awaiting the transports," he said to him. "Damn them!" he yelled out. "No, damn her…" he said with a wicked smile, talking about Relena Darlian, "but she shall pay dearly."

"Launch Operation Meteor Shower at once, Commander Fenald," he said to the man who brought him the news. "I took that step early sir, I knew you would approve of it," he said bowing his head. "Don't do that again, it may have been vitally important to have waited… but, good thinking this time. We'll just have to gather what we already have. It can't wait any longer," the old man said standing up. He stretched his arms out. He then picked up his documents off of the table and started heading towards the door. "We must leave now, it's important that we get back to space," he said. "Yes, sir. Until we meet again captain, good day," Fenald said before escorting the other delegates out. They all reached their respective transports at the spaceport. Once they arrived, they all quickly launched into space.

* * *

Solo and Heero were steadily working on their suits for a solid week. The Deathscythe Hell Fire's main body was looking just as completed as the Neo Wing Zero's. Heero spent the extra time he had when Solo wasn't there to do extra work on his own gundam. He had the right arm almost completed. Heero needed help with the computer systems at the same time he was wiring, and building, the hand controls. That's why he never finished the right arm, he needed Solo's help.

"Hey, when we finish up with this arm, how about we work on the legs? I know these cranes have to be weighing down a lot now," Solo suggested to Heero. He just nodded in agreement. "Give it an input pulse at source 147 now, with a repeat of 5 seconds later," Heero said up to Solo in the cockpit. "All right, give me a second," he answered back as he typed in the programming code. He then gave it the command to run the code. Solo reached up and pushed the corresponding button, on the main hand controls, to impulse 147, which cause the index finger of the gundam to move inward, then back out again. 5 seconds later, it repeated the same process. "Good. It works," Heero said as he completed the permanent wiring of the control box to the hand of his gundam's right arm, from the control router in the wrist of the gundam's arm. "That's good. Now we have the right arm completed! Yes!" Solo said jumping out of the cockpit. "When you leave today, I'll build the armor for the shoulder pads," Heero said jumping off of the wrist onto the platform.

"I've still got like around 6 hours before I have to go. That's enough to begin the construction of a leg," Solo mentioned. "Oh, I've started construction of a pair one day when I was bored. Don't worry, they are just the bases with the leg motors installed," he said to braided boy. "Cool, that works for me. Who's gundam do you want to put them on?" he asked. "How about yours, since I have a right arm and half of a left arm?" Heero replied to shinigami. "Then let's get started!" he said rubbing his hands together.

Over the next week, they did create the first pair of legs for the God of Death's Son's gundam. He was pleased. It was taking a much more defined shape now. Although it had wires coming out of the main body, armor missing, plus no head or arms, and all the other extras. Heero started building the legs for his gundam in the spare time that he had alone. With the knowledge from what he and Solo did with the other legs, he was confident enough to create his own his own without help.

* * *

Over those two weeks, space wasn't quite the happy place. The media was left out of the commotion. The Earth Sphere discovered inside of the abandoned colony the re-construction of the old Peacemillion battle cruiser. They built a huge beam cannon in the middle of the vessel. The colonies that weren't apart of the rebellion were afraid of the rebels now. The rebellion demanded freedom under the name of the Barton Foundation! Relena was shocked and couldn't believe that what she had been doing for 15 years wasn't keeping the peace, but causing it to build up into a war, which she knew would escalate no matter what happened.

A few weeks later, Relena was going over documentation of the new proposal of what to do, in her office at her mansion in Virginia. Heero walked in and right up to Relena, who didn't seem to notice he was there. He laid a velvet box in front of Relena, on her desk. She looked up at him with puppy eyes, before he said, "I'll marry you Relena, but not after I take care of the Barton Foundation. I'll also find our son," Heero said as he turned and walked out of the room. "He stopped, "I love you." Relena grabbed the box and opened it. It was a ring with a huge diamond in it with 10 small cut emeralds circling around it. She looked up at the door where he exited, "Oh… Heero…" she said before letting a tear slide down her face. She cried for awhile after he left.

* * *

Over the next week, the news started 'rumors' of a possible feud between the Earth Sphere and the Outer-Rim Space Colonies, or ORSC. The Earth military force is controlling the news right now and won't show anything of what is going on. When the 3 cruisers reached the abandoned colony, it wasn't abandoned at all. The large hanger on the bottom side of the colony was open and the Peacemillion was being pulled out of it with about twenty-five black Taurus mobile suits guarding it. The government took quick decisive action against the protesting colonies and they immediately sent thirty-five of their light-blue Taurus mobile suits to meet up with the 3 cruisers.

The colonies then turned on their outer beam cannons and warned all Earth Sphere crafts to stay out of firing range. The Barton Foundation made a direct statement to the Earth, and to Mars. Max Barton, the younger brother to Dekim Barton, was the leader of this new rebellion. He told the Earth Sphere that he would rule outer space at all costs. He had already sent twenty mobiles suits to the 10 closest colonies. He had them take over each one and told their colony leaders to subdue to the rise of the Barton Foundation by giving them their colony and all resources. Only 5 colonies fell in at first. Two of the colonies that wouldn't join had their leaders shot at Max's command. After two others had their colony controls malfunctioned, which would cause the colonies to eventually loose total control and wouldn't be able to support life over the next 72 hours, the last agreed to join them.

During this time period, Heero and Solo completed the vernian booster systems for their gundams. Heero had already completed the legs for each of the mobile suits a few weeks earlier. Solo was inside of his completed cockpit working with the practice system. Heero had brought up a computer system that allowed the pilots to run mock-battles against simulated information. Heero thought this 3D system looked pretty new and advanced from anything he had seen so far. "Damn, this is harder than I thought!" Solo yelled out from his cockpit as he took on 10 Taurus mobile dolls armed with beam rifles and laser rifles. He had already managed to destroy 6 of them, but he took damage in the excess of loosing his left arm and causing his left leg to be malfunctioning, beyond use. "Ahhh! Take this you stupid mobile dolls!" he yelled as he sliced through another one with his warblades. He dropped his scythe because it was hard to use with just one arm. He then spun around quickly and fired his dual laser cannons a few times and they melted through the suit, causing it to explode. A Taurus flew up behind him and grabbed him from the back. Solo kicked upward in the back with his good leg, crushing the Taurus's weak titanium right leg. He then quickly fired the vernians, while spinning to the right and sliced the purple suit into two. To make sure he got it, he fired a laser through the suit's main camera. The parts then exploded right next to him.

The last Taurus popped up right in front of him and fired a shot from its laser cannon. Solo tried to move, but the shot caught his lower right chest armor. It melted through it and caused it to explode and smoke. Solo was shocked the suit didn't explode. "AHH!!!" Solo screamed while he fired the vernains on his suit and flew through right at the Taurus. The Taurus suit's actions were too slow for the fast suit and the Deathscythe Hell Fire's wings ripped right through the small titanium mecha. He flipped around and watched as it exploded into pieces. After it did, the computer displayed a rating of "B+".

"Yes! I did better this time! I didn't make a 'C'," Solo said jumping out of the cockpit with his arms in the air and a huge smile on his face. He landed with one kneeing touching the ground. "Good. You are improving. I checked the system, and noticed that it was using the gundanium alloy armor. Our suits are stronger, so you would have done much better in real combat," Heero said looking toward Solo from the computer.

"I'm going to see if I can dig up some more mobile suit data to sortie with. I heard of the Mobile Doll system while searching and the Taurus was the prototype for the system. Afterward, they created 2 more spawns: the Virgo and Virgo II models. From what I read about their siege on the Lake Victoria Base and the Sank Kingdom, the Virgo suits were powerful land models. The Virgo II's were later designed for space combat," Heero told Solo. He just kinda looked at him weird. "All right, well… you lost me. I don't know the history as well as you when it comes to the mobile suits or the major battles during that year, but I'll learn," he said with his right hand behind his head, smiling. He tossed his braid over his shoulder while walking to the elevator.

"Well, I'm going to run and take a quick shower. Those battles wear me out," he said wiping the sweat from his forehead. Heero had lit the other passageway, which led to quarters that once belonged to engineers. Solo had brought a bag with extra clothes just in case he may ever need them. Heero started living in those quarters now. He left the place he used to stay at about 2 months earlier so that he could spend all of his time working on the mobile suits. Solo was surprised he managed to stay there that long by himself.

* * *

Heero jumped out of the jeep he drove up into the mountains with. He tightened up his heavy, fur coat that he was wearing. He stared up between to snowy-peaked mountains and saw a light flicker about every minute. He walked for nearly 3 hours through heavy snow up through the mountains. He climbed up the side of this cliff, then jumped over to a rock, where climbed down the hole that was behind it. He dropped and fell about 10 feet down, landing just fine on the ground. He got up and walked through the dark-lit cavern until he came up to a metal door. He put a card into it and pushed a 9-digit code. The light turned green and a female voice said, "Please state your name for voice recognition."

"Odin Lowe, Jr." Heero said to the computer panel. "Access Granted. Welcome, Odin," the computer said back to him. Heero closed his eyes at the name. He rarely heard his real name spoken. The door slid open to the left and Heero ducked inside and the door shut behind him.

He took off his jacket, for the temperature was set to almost perfect for being in the mountains. He walked up to railing across the room, then he looked down into the huge, warm facility. The Wing Zero was standing there being held up by a crane. Heero climbed up on the railing, then flipped down onto a metal platform not too far below. He walked to the end of it and took the elevator down to the level where his gundam stood. He looked up at it. "Zero… it's time. I didn't rebuild you for nothing after all," Heero said to his gundam, smiling. "I built your twin buster rifle just in time also," looking over at the weapon hanging from a set of cranes. Heero used the suit's pilot rope to lift himself up to the cockpit, where he punched in the all-familiar code and the cockpit slid open. He crawled into it and sat down at pilot's seat. He closed his eyes and ran his hands over the all-to-familiar controls and the cockpit lit up and it turned on. The Zero system initialized and the eyes of the mecha lit up with a fiery glow.

Heero grabbed the huge double-barrel rifle and split it into two. He attached each half on the sides of his gundam's legs where he built a spot for them to lock down. The gundam crouched low, spreading it's wings before they came flapping down, while the suit sky-rocketed upward in the factory. Heero sent the command to open the roof hatch. It crept completely open, slowly, but just in time for the mobile suit to come flying out of it. It went flying onward into space flapping its wings, with little sparkles escaping its wing's boosters.

* * *

Solo and Heero took a step back from their suits. They marveled at their great creations. They had finally completed them. Heero threw a greasy rag on the ground that he used to wipe off his hands, while Solo just used his black shirt. Solo sighed looking up at his black marvel. "Well, we finally did it Heero. Can you believe it?" Solo said looking over toward Heero smiling with joy. "Yep, I can," he replied with a dull tone. "I am happy, although I don't quite show it," he then added. "Trust me, I know!" Solo said as he gave him a mean look. "All right, well, let's see how the work, alright?" Solo asked him trying to change the subject. "I still have about an hour and a half before I've gotta run. I'll have to leave a few hours early today," he added, before continuing, "I'm going out with my parents to dinner with a client of my father."

"All right. Don't do any damage to the suits. They were hell to create, plus we barely have the supplies to repair them. We'll only go for an hour, if we even last that long," Heero said before running over to his suit and jumping inside. Solo did the same. He ran through the startup sequence of his gundam. The cockpit lit up from the input of the cockpit screens. Heero was already walking toward the huge mobile suit door that he commanded open.

"Go through the door over there. You'll see a door to the right and one to the left. The right side will have a blinking red light, it leads to the outside. The one to the left will have a green blinking light on it. It leads to a huge indoor area that has a high ceiling. We can use that place for practice," Heero told Solo, who just nodded with his gundam's head. They both walked into the huge room that Heero had mentioned. He pushed in the command to give light to the huge room. It was huge and very tall with walkways and platforms running everywhere.

"This must have been a mobile suit staging area while this base was operational," Solo pointed out. "It was I think," Heero said back to him. Heero fired his vernians and flew up into the air in a diagonal line, before flipping over and spinning around. He then hovered there with his gundam's arms spread out. "Let's get going," he said to Solo, who then punched his gundam into a very fast speed-hover across the floor, before jumping up under the Neo Wing Zero and trying to punch it. Heero flew out of the way and flew off to his left. He then flew right at him while throwing a punch toward the main body. Solo yelled as Heero seemed to be much faster than him, so Solo's reaction wasn't so quick, but he did manage to knock the punch away. He then flew back from the other mecha to regain himself.

"Man, you are fast! I thought my suit had more boosting power?" Solo said to him. "It… does," Heero said before his suit's boosters gave out and he fell out of the air onto the ground. "help… me," Heero managed to get out before he passed out inside the cockpit. "Heero!" Solo screamed as he flew down and landed next to the other gundam suit. Solo opened his cockpit and jumped out. He landed on the ground and ran over to the cockpit hatch of the Neo Wing Zero and punched in the entry code. The cockpit slowly slid open and Solo jumped and pulled Heero out. "Damn! What happened to him?" Solo thought as he brought him back to the quarters that Heero was staying in. After about 30 minutes, Solo tried to wake him with some cold water. "uhh.." Heero groaned before opening his eyes. "Sol.. Solo?" he asked. "It's hard to see," he said trying to raise himself up from his lying position in the bed. Solo helped him to sit with his back to the wall. "Don't try to move too much," he told him, handing him a glass of water, "drink."

"I guess you just passed out while flying. Who knows why?" he said shrugging. "I think I do… it was the Zero system," he said taking a sip of the water. "The what?" Solo asked with narrowed eyes on Heero. He took another sip. "It's the system that made that mecha so powerful. It would get battle data to the pilot faster through brainwaves rather than relying on the pilot's reaction time, making him faster. I read reports of what it did to the pilots, it made them go insane," he said as he closed his eyes and leaned his head back against the cold, gray wall. "It also made some pilots pass out instead, which was a side affect that meant that they were getting use to the system. So, I guess I'll be all right," he told Solo. "Well, next time tell me if you do anything like that again. I might have just thought you were joking around, or have been hurt badly," Solo hissed at Heero. Solo stood and folded his arms. "Sorry," Heero said as he stood up and set the glass down.

Solo was kinda mad. He sat down on the couch across from his bed and turned on the TV. The afternoon news was just starting. "In today's news, the Earth Sphere has released the official information on the rumor of the creation of a large inter-planetary battle station," the reporter said from the TV. "What's going?" Heero asked Solo. "I don't know. I spent too much time here to keep up with what has really been going on with the world and space," he replied. "Good afternoon all, my name is Relena Darlene. The rumor of the ORSC declaring war on the Earth Sphere is a lie. We will continue to keep you informed on our current situation. We're putting together a space delegation team to comfort those who think we need better relations with the Space Colonies. There is nothing to worry about, so everyone be calm," Relena said standing in front of a podium at the Preventor's agency before stepping away. Wufei was standing in the back; left corner with his arms crossed looking at the camera. He left behind Relena as the emergency broadcast cut off and the TV returned to it's normal programming.

"M… mother…" Heero said. He hadn't seen her in over 3 or 4 months. He didn't remember how long it had been. "There is going to be a war in the space soon, Solo," Heero said as he looked at the news he had changed the channel too. Solo cried out, "A war?!"

"They have yet to declare they are going to send mobile suits to earth to take over Moscow. They are probably not going to even mentioned ones all ready stationed on earth. It would take them less than a few hours to deploy them. People wouldn't have a lot of time to seek refuge from the assault," Heero said, hoping to not completely scare Solo.

"The Preventors are working around the clock to try to keep this problem under control. I think we should try to stop the suits on earth," Heero said as he heard a large sound, then asked Solo to turn the TV off. He heard it again and motioned Solo to follow him across the walkway into the first room they met in.

Heero walked up to the door, then pulled a gun from his pocket. Shinigami reached behind his back and pulled out his gun as well. "Ready?" Heero asked him. Shinigami nodded, and then Heero hit the flashing green button. The door hissed open and they both jumped through pointing their pistols. "Holy shit!" Solo yelled out looking ahead of him. They looked together and saw hundreds of the Mercurius and Vaye-Ates walking toward a huge exit door. "Look over at the computer," Heero said pointing with his gun. "What does that say?" Solo said squeezing his eyes together. The computer was far away from him. "It says 'Operation Meteor Shower [Accomplished]' and 'Operation Armageddon [Begin]'," Heero said.

"I guess it's up to us to stop them after all. I though these were the ground troops that they had on the Earth," Heero said to Solo. "They have to be! But we'll take them down! Ready my friend?" Solo said to Heero as he put his gun back behind his back. "Sure Shinigami," Heero replied as smiled and then high-fived Solo.

Chapter 3: Armageddon?


	3. Armageddon?

Gundam Wing: _Ended Waltz_

By: Qasur Zephlar Exlarr

Chapter 3: Armageddon?

Shinigami and Heero ran to their suits and jumped into the cockpits. They lit up as they pressed the controls and buttons to power-up their massive machines of destruction. The screens blinked and fizzed before showing the inside of the construction room that they were using. The Neo Wing Zero walked forward, then it turned to the right and Heero fired the vernians causing the machine to dart at the door across the way. While in flight, he grabbed the double-barrel laser rifle out its storage area in the shield. As he rapidly approached the door, he fired the rifle at it in a circular motion. The lasers melted the door. It creaked before giving way and falling back, just as the huge mecha flew through it.

"Hey! Wait for me!" Solo yelled as he fired his thrusters sending his robot toward the newly created exit. He quickly did a 360-spin before zooming out through the open hole. "Heee Haaaww!" he screamed as he flew through it.

Heero flew into the room that he and Solo first trained in when they completed their gundams. He flew up the wall on the left side and laser-opened another hole to allow him to enter the assembly-line room building the mobile dolls.

"Solo, go outside and stop the suits that have already left," Heero ordered to his fellow pilot, and friend. "All right, but won't you need my help?" he asked back to him. "I might, but it's too dangerous. Remember out last encounter with the ZERO system? I just don't want to mistake you as an enemy, ok?" he explained. "Yeah," Solo said, "I understand." He walked his mecha to the door to leave. "Hey," he said getting Heero's attention again, "Good luck, and don't get killed."

"Likewise," he replied. "Shinigami is outta here!" he yelled as he sliced open the door with his thermal scythe, before flying out of the room.

As soon as he flew out, a group of mobile dolls picked him up on their radar. Beeping was heard in the gundam's cockpit as the two, small sub-screens in the pilot's chair showed the Mercurius and Vaye-Ate mobile doll's weapons and a description of the mobile suits. Solo already knew what he was up against though. He had studied the information on all of the gundams. He had not though, studied much on the old mobile suits that were made from titanium. His main screens showed little, blinking arrows moving around in the directions of the suits it scanned nearest to him, and the ones that had him locked onto him. "Shit!" he cursed out while engaging the active clock. He saw about 15 of the targets fall of the screen's radar lock. "Ha ha…lost me have you?" he laughed out before flying into a bunch of suits.

Heero flew into the assembly-line construction facility. Some of the suits targeted him. He spun out of the way of the Vaye-Ate's beam cannon fire. He timed it good enough so that the dodged shots hit the mobile suit construction equipment. While flying, he pulled out his double beam sabre and ignited it. He rammed it right through a Mercurius as he fly head-on into it, before spinning to slash more of the assembly line equipment. The Mercurius and the equipment exploded, blowing another completed, but not activated, Mercurius into molten pieces. Smoke and fire slowly started to fill the enclosed room, which now has a new enter/exit hole. Before he could realize it, Heero was slicing apart two of the rip-off gundams that were being made out of titanium for mass production. He flew up to a Vaye-Ate model and hurled the heat rod through the beam cannon. He retracted it, then flew off as the beam cannon's explosion engulfed the suit, destroying it. He ran into another Vaye-Ate head on. The impact from the head-on slam knocked it off the ground and into air. It slammed into some equipment in the assembly line. Heero returned the beam sabre to its storage place and pulled out the laser rifle. He fired both barrels at the suit. One of the shots went through the head, before melting down through the main body. The other hit and sliced the beam cannon in half. The suit exploded, blowing up the main construction equipment of the facility. The lasers had continued past the suit they went through and nailed two Mercurius' awaiting activation in a line of many. They both exploded, causing a chain reaction taking out another 3 of them. Heero was panting and sweating badly, his eyes were is a swirling daze of colors. He began to see things, but one of the Mercurius' shot him with its beam pistol and he jolted out of the daze. He just shot the laser rifle at it. It melted right though suit after bypassing its planet defenser shield system. It was in 3 pieces from the attack before exploding. Heero regained himself, then looked around and the room was burning, exploding here and there, and smoke was everywhere. It was hard to see anymore.

"Mission Complete," he said, "now to clean up the loose pieces." Heero engaged into a fight with 3 more mobile dolls in the thick of the smoke. He had a small edge on them because they couldn't see him, but the ZERO system could see them.

Outside Shinigami had destroyed many of the mobile dolls. He got an upper hand on them because most of them couldn't locate him unless he was almost in close combat with them. The Deathscythe Hell Fire came landing down in a group of mobile dolls as he brought his scythe down as well. The backend blades stabbed through a Vaye-Ate behind him as the planet defenser field stopped the front-end of the scythe. He quickly flew at it, passed the shield, and sliced the suit from the cockpit up through the head with an uppercut from the thermal warblades. Both of the suits exploded into remnants of hot titanium scraps.

Shinigami spun around and four giant blasts were heading toward him. One of them hit his chest and dissipated against his small, built-in planet defenser shield system. It knocked him back a bit from the hit though. Another one hit his knee and the planet defenser spike was snapped off and it hit the ground with a thud. The shield sparked and fizzed a bit before completely failing. "Damn those mobile dolls!" Shinigami said trying to get up while being hit with beam cannons. He fired all of the thrusters on the gundam at one time, which hurled him into the air, where he did a flip and came down landing on a Vaye-Ate. He swung the huge dual-beam scythe. He took off and flew right past a few more. He landed at the back of the group, where his pneumatic jets could be heard exhaling their pressurized contents. All of the Vaye-Ates suddenly exploded in a huge explosion with barely any sign of damage except a little glow from them. He turned to his right and punched a Mercurius that was flying at full speed. Its beam sabre, on its shield, was fully extended. The mobile doll didn't have time to take in the weapons that were about to hit it. The suit just flew into the fully extended thermal warblades on the gundam. They sliced the suit into two pieces. Each part went in slow motion as they past by on each side of the gundam, before they blew up next to the Deathscythe Hell Fire. "Made it through that one! Let's get going buddy, more suits for the Son of the God of Death to kill!" he said with his father's wicked grin on his face. His long braid was hanging over his right shoulder, almost in his face, but he didn't care. The vernians glared bright yellow before erupting and sending the suit flying into the air again.

* * *

While Hilde and Duo were watching TV during lunch, a special report from the news interrupted. They reported on a mobile suit battle that was in the city. "I thought that the news didn't talk about mobile suits on the air?" Hilde asked her husband. "Well, they aren't supposed to, but maybe someone goofed up or it's maybe it must be really important," he replied sternly. The reporter mentioned that no one should leave their homes and all people on the road should find shelter until the battle was over. She also mentioned that they were getting their first live feed from their cameraman on the field. They enlarged the picture from the corner of the screen. "Holy shit!" Duo screamed out, jumping up from the couch. Hilde gasped as her eyes widened at the video feed.

"That's a shit load of Mercurius and Vaye-Ate mobile suits!" Duo yelled out. He saw the battlefield clearly. It was dark outside with storm clouds around the city. There were pits of fire where suits were already destroyed. Other suits were going here and there shooting beam weapons at the suit outside. He ran over to the phone and called down to the Sweepers' Barge. "Hey, what's going on? They aren't after us, are they?" he asked the guy on the phone. He answered 'No', and that they went to a few of the destroyed suits. He told Duo that they were unmanned suits, which meant mobile dolls to Duo. "Thanks for the info, I'll be down there shortly," he said to before hanging up the phone.

"Duo, you don't plan on going out there do you?" Hilde asked him. "I am going, sorry Hilde, but someone has to stop those suits," he said back to her, kissing her forehead. "I know, but why you?" she said looking into his cobalt eyes. 

"Hilde, don't do this, I've got to go," he said to her, smoothing his hand over her midnight hair. "It'll be alright Hilde. The God of Death has survived numerous times!" he assured her. Just then a report of a suit fighting back came in. Duo and Hilde walked over to the TV to watch. A huge black mecha sliced a blue suit in pieces, before it blew up. The suit turned around and the camera was able to pick up what it really looked like. It was standing in a pit of blazing fire. The eyes of the suit flashed before it took off into another suit, slicing it into pieces. "Tha… that looks just like Deathscythe!" Duo screamed aloud. "What's going on?!"

* * *

Heero came flying out of the smoking and burning assembly rooms after he destroyed all of the suits that were there. He was in Neo Bird Mode. He flapped the wings harder. The thruster fired and the suit came roaring out into the open, past the door chibi shinigami had cut down. He looked around and saw many piles of suits everywhere. There were also many blazing fires from some still-burning suits that were recently destroyed. He found an area of heavily concentrated suits and headed that way. He picked up the Deathscythe Hell Fire off to the far right, so he headed left into about two dozen suits. After a moment, a few explosions could be seen coming from where he disappeared off.

* * *

"Hey, that's the Wing Zero," Duo said shockingly, "but wait… it's different" Duo looked at the new suit that flew into view. "Babe, I've got to go now. I'm going to find Heero and the others, but please don't worry, everything will be alright," he said to his wife, giving her another kiss on the forehead. "Oh, tell the kids that I love them and not to worry about me being gone," he said turning to go. Hilde grabbed his arm and turned him around. She gave him a passionate kiss. "Duo, please come back to me," Hilde said as a tear escaped her eye and rolled down her cheek. Duo wiped the tear away smiling. "You know I'll be back my Angel of Death," he said to her looking deep into her cornflower blue eyes before running out the den.

* * *

Shinigami screamed as he brought the scythe down, slicing off the Vaye-Ate's arm that carried the beam cannon off. He did a spin and sliced it half. He flew off and it exploded. "Damn, there were a lot of these suits," he said wiping the sweat from his forehead. He also tossed his braid over his shoulder. "Only," he said looking at the computer read-out, "36 more suits left."

He flew up to a Mercurius, then fired the boosters sending him upwards a little, where he cut them and hovered. He then shot his lasers from his head unit and they bypassed the energy field and melted the cockpit area, before the suit exploded. Right before he could land, a Vaye-Ate shot at him. He spun around just to get hit by another Vaye-Ate behind him. That beam cannon shot went right through his left wing. It didn't explode, but left a gapping hole. "Shit!" he screamed as he saw what it had done to his suit. "What?! Aww… Damn it!" he screamed again as the loud alarms went off inside the cockpit. He was going to have a major headache when it was all over.

He ignited the warblades and flew at the Vaye-Ate that shot him. He did a 360-spin before banking far to his left. He fired the thrusters to stop him, then flew right up to the side of the suit. It was too slow to react to the faster suit. He quickly sliced it upwards, then stabbed into the suit. Molten pieces of titanium melted off of the suit as it glowed red from where he stabbed it, before blowing up. "Got ya stupid ass machine!" he said happily, with a wicked grin. "Now for your friend," he said as he took off toward the other one. He sliced off the head, as he flew over it, then landed behind it. He ignited the scythe and stabbed behind him. The thermal blades shot straight through the back of the suit. He pulled the scythe back and took off. The Vaye-Ate tried to turn, but exploded. The beam cannon that blew off of it landed nearly 20 feet away from the cameraman.

Heero spun in a circle with a few Mercurius' around him. He had the heat rod and double beam sabre spread out and they sliced about 8 suits apart, before they all exploded around him. He flew up to another of the Mercurius suits and sliced of its shield with the beam sabre, then, with the heat rod, beat off its arm with the beam pistol. Part of the arm melted, before the whole arm exploded off of the suit. The suit activated its shield, but it didn't help. Heero was too close and he stabbed it in the chest, before yanking upward, slicing the head and camera off. Soon after the suit's main body exploded upward, leaving just the legs on the ground. He took off toward another red-colored suit. He fired the head-mounted lasers at it, but they hit a planet defenser, blowing it up. Heero flew right past the dying shield, then stuck out the beam sabre as he flew past the suit, slicing it into 2 halves. The top half fell over, blowing up on the ground, then the legs blew up throwing one of the loose planet defensers into the camera of a Vaye-Ate. The blue suit started firing rapidly at nothing, but managed to hit and blow up two of its own Vaye-Ate mobile dolls. One stray shot dissipated against one of the Mercurius' shields. It then targeted the suit and shot it's beam pistol and blew off the leg of the Vaye-Ate. Heero hovered down behind the suit quickly, then jabbed the heat rod through it. He flew to the right toward another suit. The heat rod melted its way out of the Vaye-Ate, causing it to explode completely.

Heero put the beam sabre away because it was running out of power. He pulled out the laser rifle and fired a few shots at two more mobile dolls. They hit the suits and they blew up. Heero checked the radar and only 3 suits remained. He looked over at Shinigami and he sliced the remaining two mobile suits into shreds. They blew up as he walked away from them. He had a fiery background behind the black suit, as it's thermal scythes roared along with the flames in the darkened landscape. "Only you and I remain, Shinigami," Heero whispered to himself. "Hey, over here!" Solo yelled waving the, now out of power, scythe around. "I see you," he replied. "Let's get back to the warehouse, I see you need some repairs," he said jumping into the air, transforming the suit back into Neo Bird Mode. "Yeah, I kinda took some damage," he said flying up beside the suit. They both flew off to the old base.

* * *

Hilde switched the TV to the all news channel. She wanted to see what was going on. As if her question was answered, a special news report cut in on every station. It was Relena addressing the people of earth. Relena walked up to the podium to make her announcement. "Hello everyone. I would like to announce that the ORSC have declared their independence from the space colonies and the Earth Sphere," she started. "They have acquired many mobile suits and have rebuilt an aged battle station. We learned all of this nearly two days ago. Presently, they have acquired many space colonies into their organization under their new leader, Max Barton." She was under stress and pressure from them and at any moment was about to snap. Relena just couldn't believe what was going on.

"They used force and will continue to if we do not meet their demands. They wish to stop the Mars Project, as most of you know, it has gone on successfully for the last 15 years. They want to stop all projects near the outer rim colonies," she said to the viewing public. 

"Presently, I have a messenger ship going to Mars. It shall return in a few days with the delegates of the planet and with news of what is going on. I have announced that the Earth Sphere will not join the ORSC's rebellion, and will stop them at all costs. A few lives have already been lost to this small rebellion and I hope that we can stop this before any more people have to suffer! I am issuing that all major ports be put under martial law. No one is to go to the space colonies. We are trying to gather as many people from the colonies as we can," she said taking a second to breathe, "they are being held back by ORSC mobile suits."

"The Preventors have been working around the clock to control the situation. We will keep you all informed on the situation as it continues. Every local News station will report after this announcement of the closest shelters to stay out and inform you all. Good luck everyone and I wish you all safety," Relena finished. The station switched to the local news as they started up the procedures of where to go for shelters.

Hilde jumped up and ran to the phone. She called the barge. Chris answered the phone. "Hey, can I speak to Duo?" she asked him. "Yeah, sure, he's bringing up his mobile suit right now," he replied. She heard a loud sound. The elevator reached the top deck. Duo ran and picked up the phone, "Hey babe, what is it?" he asked. "I just saw the news. There is probably going to be another war for sure now," she said to him. "Yeah, I know. I was just watching it also. I just talked to Relena before she made her announcement. She said that Heero went into space, so I'm going up there as well," he said to her. "Oh, I see," she said to him. "Ok, be careful Duo," she said. Her eyes were beginning to water. She was scared the last time he left to go battle in space. "I will babe," he said in a loving and caring tone. Hilde sighed on the other end. "Well, I've got to run, the suit needs some maintenance before I leave," he said to her about to hang up the phone, "bye sweetie, I love you." Hilde repeated "I love you" too, then gently set the phone down and just slumped down on the couch and brought her knees up to her chest. She wrapped her arms around her legs and sat there for awhile. "Oh, Duo…"

* * *

Heero had just reached space successfully in the repaired Wing Zero. He flew to a colony where there were people he could trust. He told Wufei and Sally to meet him there also. The Preventor's had already come to space and taken control of a colony, but it was going to be attacked soon enough. Good thing Heero called them early, because they left a decoy of them there when they left to head to the same colony he was going to.

Wufei met Heero in the mobile suit docks. "Yuy, what are you doing with that gundam?" he asked, with his arms crossed. "I'm going to destroy the Barton Foundation once and for all with it," he replied. Wufei smirked, "I thought it was destroyed," he asked. "It was," Heero replied. Wufei's eyes jumped at his answer. Heero pushed off from the cockpit and floated down to Wufei, then looked past him to see Sally and a little girl walking his way.

"Wufei, there you are," Sally said to him, "oh, hey Heero, glad you could make it." Heero nodded toward her, then looked at the kid. Wufei saw him looking at his daughter. "This is Nataku, my daughter," Wufei said as he looked toward her. She nodded toward Heero, "Hello."

"Well, I would have never guessed," Heero said looking at Sally. She was smiling. She then put an arm around Wufei. "Yes, it surprised many people, didn't it dear?" she said in his ear. He almost jumped, "Indeed," he said replied closing his eyes looking the other way. He still had his arms crossed.

Just then another mobile suit came flying into the hangar. It landed on the ground. Heero turned around and his eyes went wide. "It's the Tallgeese III," he said, "but it's damaged." The suit was indeed damaged. Parts of the suit were broken and some of the armor was cracked. Blackened burn marks were all over the suit. The cockpit slowly opened, with problems, and a tall person, with long, platinum blonde hair stepped out. He kicked against the suit and it pushed him toward the crowded bunch. He landed a few feet away from Heero. "Oh… it's you, Zechs?" he asked. "I'm afraid not. My name is Wind, Wind Peacecraft," the boy said removing his space helmet. "You're his son then," Heero said noticing an astonishing resemblance. "Yes, and who might you be?" he asked. "My name is Heero Yuy. Your father and I go a far way back," he said to him. The youth nodded. "I've heard all about it," he said to him.

"I just came here from Mars, I must see my Aunt Relena," he said to them. "She's on Earth," Sally replied to him. "Oh, I was told by my father that this was a safe colony to stop at. Help would be here he said to me. He also mentioned that the Earth Sphere would most likely be using it as the base of their operations," he informed them. "Well, he still knows some of the trade," Heero said. "Relena will be here in the next day. Zechs was right, they are going to be using this colony," Heero said to his nephew-to-be.

"The Preventors are going to take care of this problem. Oh, and Heero, Relena called me and said that Duo was coming as well. She had some more things to explain, but she said that Duo would tell you when he got here," she said to Wind and Heero. "Ok. We can use all the help we can get," he said to her. "Please, tell me why your suit is badly damaged?" Heero asked the youth.

"The Mars Base has been destroyed," he started off saying with pain in his eyes, "it was suddenly attacked by about 50 mobile suits. The asteroid defense suits, which are mainly made up of pure rocket launchers, were all destroyed, so we had no chance of fighting back." He said to them. "My father had taught me how to pilot them though…" Wind said. He lowered his head. "What is it?" Sally asked. "He brought me to this suit right after my mother died, she helped save my father and I," he said letting a tear escape. "Noin…" Sally said, covering her mouth. She let out a few tears herself. Wufei turned to let Sally cry on his shoulder.

Heero's eyes widened. "He shoved me into the cockpit and told me to get to Relena. After I turned on the suit, I saw my father run for cover, then there was an explosion and… I… I couldn't save them," he said. He had stopped crying. "Zechs…" Heero said. "Relena…" he said thinking about what she was going to do and say. "Let's not tell Relena what happened," he immediately told him, "I think it would be better if she didn't know just yet," Heero said to him.

"All right," Wind said, "but after I left the hidden place, I destroyed about 90% of the mobile suits that were attacking us. I then flew off toward the space port."

"The Barton Foundation has gone really low this time, that was cruel," Sally said. She regained herself and wiped her tears away from her eyes. Heero was still watching Wind, waiting for him to finish. "I barely managed to get a shuttle for the mobile suit, because they had destroyed most of the transports. I took off for here as quickly as I could," he continued to say. "That's not all though, I lost the transport while crossing through the asteroids. It was hit badly, so I bailed out. I managed not to get hit by any more getting out. I then flew toward a colony, but became attacked upon again by more mobile suits and a lot of mines," he said to them.

"Heh, that's the mine field they set up near the asteroids. And those were the mobile suits of the Barton Foundation; they were the ones who attacked you. They created their base from the 5 Outer Rim colonies, so you ran into the thick of them," Heero said to him. "Oh, damn, that's pretty bad. I guess I'm lucky," he said, "I took down a lot of suits getting away. I hid at a colony not far from here a day ago, but then left to come here once it was clear," Wind said.

"I'll get my people to work on your suit for you then, we can get it repaired," Sally said to him. She told them to come into the main office and they could continue to talk there.

* * *

A day later, Duo met Relena and the Earth Sphere's crew, heading toward space. He accompanied them as protection. He showed up just in time too. A squad of Taurus mobile dolls attacked them. Soon they arrived at Colony X-199987. "Relena, you're safe," Heero said as she came out of the shuttle. "Heero!" she said as she jumped to him. She kinda ran up to him and gave him a kiss. She was worried that Heero might have already gone into combat. She didn't want him fighting anymore, but she knew that he would bring peace back if anyone could. 

"Aunt Relena?" Wind asked as he watched them. She stepped back, then looked at the youth. "Wind?" she asked as she smiled. She walked over to him and gave him a hug. "How are you?" she asked him. She had never met him before, only seen pictures that Noin had sent her. "I'm fine Aunt Relena," he replied. He didn't want to keep what he knew back from her, but Heero gave him a look that caused him to keep his mouth shut.

Duo jumped out of his custom-made, black Leo. "Heya Heero!" he said to him as he floated toward them. "Duo, How are you?" he asked in his melancholy voice. "I'm just fine," he replied. "Wu," Duo said nodding toward Wufei, who politely nodded back toward Duo, instead of insulting him and saying his wife was weak. "Hey Duo," Sally said happily to Duo. "Well, Hello Sally. Good to see you," he said smiling his usual happy-go-lucky smile.

"Let's get inside. We can discuss what's going on there," Sally mentioned, motioning everyone inside. Duo noticed that the mechanics were apart of the Sweeper's, so he ordered him to repair the mobile suits perfectly… and to work on his first.

"Relena," Sally said as they all sat around a conference table, "I'm sorry to say, but we have lost sight of the Peacemillion."

"What?" she said amazed. "How can you lose it? It's kinda big," she said sarcastically. "We need to find it. I hear that they have a beam cannon installed in it now," she said.

"They do," Lady Une said as she entered the room. "Sorry I'm late, I was taking care of business in California," she said. "Hey, I was in California," Duo said to her, "you wouldn't be talking about Edward, now would ya?" he asked. "Of course I was, that's where the battle was. I thought that was you in that suit," she said. "I didn't fight there," he replied. "What?" she said shockingly, "then who was piloting that suit?" she asked him. "Oh, you mean who was piloting the two suits," he corrected her. "Two suits?" she said, then mumbled something about stupid witnesses under her breath. "Yeah, there were two undiscovered suits that were fighting there and they were tearing up those others," he mentioned.

"That reminds me Heero, I wanted to tell you that I saw the Wing Zero and the Deathscythe again… only they were redesigned," he said to him. "Really?" Heero asked with a suspicious voice. "You mean we have new gundams out there and we don't know who the pilots are?" Relena asked, getting into the conversation. "Yep that's about it" Duo said smiling as he put his feet up on the table and leaned back with his hands behind his head. "Well, that's comforting," Relena said giving Duo a death glare for his happiness with the situation. Even Heero was shocked at how deadly her glare could be.

Heero got up and walked out of the room. "Heero…" Relena said as he left. She wondered where he was off too. "I'll go find him," he said as he left the room. He caught him going down the hall to the elevator. He just followed Heero down to the mobile suit hangar. "Hey, where ya off too, Heero?" Duo finally decided to ask him as they walked into the large room. "I'm waiting for Trowa, I contacted him," he replied. "Oh, you did too, I knew where he was. He had previously been to our city with the circus a few months back," Duo said to him. "I know," Heero said. "He told me he was leaving after he made sure that his sister and her daughter were fine," Heero continued to tell him.

"Yeah, she is kinda over protective of him when he wants to fight," Duo said to him. "Yep, that's because she lost him once. It was when he was really young," he told Duo. "She later found him during Operation Meteor. When he got amnesia, she decided to brain wash him into staying at home," he continued to inform him. "Yeah, I remember that, she wouldn't let me near him when I found him at the circus," Duo said to him. Heero nodded. "She then lost him again when he decided to go off and finish his battle in space with us. She couldn't keep him there or he would have gone insane."

Heero looked over at the energy field that held the pressure in the room. He was looking outside at the starts. "She just worries that if she looses him one last time, he'll be gone forever," Heero said turning back to look at Duo. "Man, I didn't realize all of that," Duo remarked.

Just then, a carrier came to the mobile suit bay. Trowa stepped out in a space suit and pushed off from the Earth Sphere shuttle. He went right through the protective shield, but because he was floating above the level of the floor, he fell on the floor when he passed through the shield. Duo started to laugh as they walked over to him. Trowa got up, and took off his helmet off. "Duo, Heero," he said nodding to them. "Trowa," Heero said back to him. "Hey Trowa, good to see you again! Nice fall," he said. Trowa just looked at the happy pilot. It had been only about 2 months since he last saw him, so it wasn't a big reunion like Heero and Trowa, or some others. They all walked back to the conference room to continue their talk about what they planned on doing.

* * *

"Hey, Heero, I'll be back in a little while. I need to go see someone before I leave," Solo said as he hopped down from the lowering elevator. "Alright, I'll fix my gundam while you're gone, since there isn't much to work on," he replied to him. They had already repaired the hole in the wing of Solo's gundam. They also repaired the planet defenser shield spike that was damaged, plus minor nicks and scratches what were causing problems.

Solo ran outside to his motorbike that he and Heero fixed up. It was much faster than the bicycle he was using. He started it up and took off toward the circus. They had only moved to the city next to them, but since it was a huge city, it was a big move. Many residents who lived there didn't want to make the nearly 40 minute drive just to see the circus. It was just a little big longer drive. He wanted to make sure that Aria was going to be ok. He figured that his mother was waiting for him to return home, but he couldn't; at least not yet. He rode up to the circus and saw one end of a Vaye-Ate's beam cannon. It had crashed into one of the tall tents, collapsing it. He ran inside the gate and saw that no one was there. He saw some people still packing up on the other side of the large lot, so he rode over there. "Damn, I didn't realize that the mobile dolls got this far away from the base!" Solo cursed aloud. He rode up to a trailer. He jumped out and started walking up the stairs to see who was in it. The people yelled at him and told him to get out of the way, so he did. They thought he was trying to steal their stuff since the circus was abandoned. He jumped down the stairs and sat against his bike. He looked to his right searching, then to his left and stopped. There she was, with her mother. "Aria!" he screamed as he came running over to her. "Solo," she said to him, "what are you doing here?"

Duo quickly thought up something to say to her. "My mother wanted us all to go back to her house, since it's close," he said to both Aria and Cathy. "Oh, ok. We'll go right away," Cathy said taking her stuff over to the rental car she had. "Aria, when I saw the circus and what had happened, I was afraid," he said looking into her eyes. "Really?" she said, "That's quite thoughtful of you."

He smiled, "Yeah, I'm a thoughtful kinda guy," he said smiling to her. "I'll be leaving now," he said, "oh, don't tell your mother, but I'm not going to be there with you guys." He looked away from her. "Why not Solo?" she said in a worried voice. "I can't tell you that right now, but don't worry, I'll be ok," he said putting his hands on her shoulders. He brought his face close to hers. "Ok?" he said looking into her eyes. "Don't worry, I'll be ok," he reassured her by smiling.

Aria looked into his cobalt blue eyes. He always stopped by the circus before he went to the base. "Oh, Solo," she said. He titled his head at the way she said his name. Before he knew it, she gave him a kiss. Solo's eyes were wide. He slowly parted his lips and she delved her tongue into his mouth. He was shocked, but happy at the same time; but it ended too soon. "That's for luck of your safe return," she said. She had a good idea at what he was planning on doing. She had found out, mainly by him not being able to keep his mouth shut, that he was going to that base nearby. She had tried to call him many times at home and his mother said he was always gone.

"Oh, Aria…"he said, "I will be ok, and", he said to her in a loving voice, that was low and barely heard, "thanks." He hugged her and gave her a quick kiss before running back to the motorbike he parked not far away. He jumped on it and started it up, before speeding back toward the military base. He took one last look at her and she smiled at him. He sped up and continued on his way.

Catherine walked back over to her daughter, who was watching Solo leave the circus. "Where did he go?" she asked her. Aria snapped out of her daze. "Oh, he had to run some errands for his mother first," she said lying for him. "Oh, ok. I guess you'll just have to see him later," she said to her daughter, who almost blushed. "You'll just have to give him another kiss later I guess?" she said too. Aria's face went totally red. Her eyes when wide, but she wasn't just looking straightforward. "Uhh..Y.. You saw us?" she said slowly looking up at her mother. Catherine looked at her daughter, but then she just nodded while smiling. "So, I guess you like him?"

"I do. He stops by here every week," she told her mother, "I know he likes me too, but he won't say it openly."

"Yeah, I remember the first time he stopped by, you messed up practicing, and then later that night you even messed up," Cathy said laughing. Catherine remembered that night clearly. Aria felt bad also for messing up, but Solo even apologized the next time he saw her for causing her grief that night. He knew things had to be done right. She didn't like her daughter getting in relationships because she was in a circus and it was constantly moving every month, but she knew the family, plus it made her daughter happy. She was feeling down a lot before she met Solo.

Aria was 17 now and very beautiful. She was tall, almost as tall as Solo. She wasn't big and she had developed into a beautiful young woman. She had deep green eyes and short, shoulder-length dark brown hair. Which she kept tied up during practice. Being in the circus kept her very fit, which Solo found very attractive too. She never had a real relationship before like this one. Solo had just turned 16 about a month earlier. He bought the wrecked motorbike instead of getting a car. He took Aria out on it once to go get lunch one day and they had the best time. Catherine just looked at her daughter was happy that she was a happy kid.

* * *

It took Solo only about two hours to go see her and get back. He started to park his bike inside the base now. Solo quickly darted into the facility and ran back down to the room with the gundams. "Hey, I'm back," he said as he saw sparks flying from the Neo Wing Zero. Heero stopped what he was doing and blew on the spot he was welding before rubbing it, then he lifted his black goggles away from his eyes. "All right, I just finished the last repair to my suit. We can leave when we're ready," he said climbing down the ladder. He didn't feel like waiting for the elevator that Solo used earlier to come back up.

"Ok. I think I'll go get changed and see what else is happening on the news," he said as he ran out of the room to their quarters. Solo flipped on the TV while he got undressed. He ran into the shower for a few minutes, before coming back out and getting dressed in a clean set of the same clothes he was wearing.

Heero jumped into the shower while Solo watched the news. He saw that the Earth Sphere had gone to space and set up a colony to work from. Heero walked out of the shower and got dressed. "Hey, Relena and the Preventor's are operating form Colony X-199987 now," he said to Heero. "Why did mother go to outer space to settle this?" Heero said to himself. He knew that she worked better from earth. "Since we've finished up our duties here, we should move on toward the colonies then, they need our help now," Solo said to him. "True, but the Preventor's are there. One of them is a gundam pilot," he said to him. "Oh, really?" he said back to him. "What's his name"

"It's Chang Wufei, I looked it up while going through the computer files on the Preventor's, I wanted to know who I might possibly be working with after this incident started," he replied to him. "Oh, ok. That's cool," Solo replied. He tossed his braid over his shoulder. "We'll leave in the morning at 07:00, ok, Solo?" Heero asked him. "Sure, I'll be ready," he said to him.

Chapter 4: Operation Clean Sweep


	4. Operation Clean Sweep

Gundam Wing: _Ended Waltz_

By: Qasur Zephlar Exlarr

Chapter 4: Operation Clean Sweep

"Sir, Operation Armageddon did not complete as planned. All of the mobile dolls were totally destroyed and the facility was completely ruined. The computer terminal was shut down first, then destroyed," the messenger said to the Barton Foundation's leader. "What did you say?" he asked as he looked over at the man with anger on his face. "Operation Arm--" he was saying, before being cut off. "I heard you! Damn it!!" he yelled. "That was a big advantage we had over them! They didn't know we had those suits being constructed on earth," he said as he smashed him fist against a nearby wall. "Tell them to send a 2 wings a Serpent mobile suits to the earth to take over Moscow, I don't want to here the same outcome this time!" he said, turning and screaming at the messenger. "Ye.. Yes sir!" he said, saluting before leaving the Baron's office.

"They don't have a clue what's about to hit them," he said to himself. He was looking out of his office's window aboard the Peacemillion as it was far off from earth, but away from the colonies near the asteroids. "This is going to be an even more sneaky attack. Just wait Luxembourg, I don't think you'll want to miss this. The capital always takes the biggest hit!" he said laughing.

Back at command on the ORSC colonies, Fenald was preparing 3 squadrons of Virgo II's to send to the Earth Sphere colony to 'shake' them up. He had already placed 2 squads at the Earth Sphere Colony on the outer rim. The pilots of the mobile suits and transports, plus the transport's passengers, were now all captives of ORSC during this war.

"Sir, I just got a report from Peacemillion, they wish us to send 2 wings of Serpent Mobile suits to Moscow to capture it," the messenger on the Colony had said. "Prepare them, I don't want to waste any time. Crippling Moscow will be a good move; it will leave Luxembourg less protected and allow us to take over the Earth Sphere," he said happily thinking about what he was going to do when the war ended in their sweet victory. "After having taken the Mars Project out of the picture, we'll be able to once and for all take care of the Earth for ourselves!" he said aloud with glory and triumph in his words. "We'll soon finally have the Earth Sphere for ourselves, it's only taken us 20 years!" he said balling his right hand into a fist.

* * *

Back on Colony X-199987, everyone was devising a plan to rescue the people that were trapped on the old colony, Z-11192. The idea was a simple diversion of forces. They would lure them from one colony to another colony that was being attack, so that Duo, who was in disguise, could sneak a transport in and rescue everyone.

"Ok, Duo, we want you to take your mobile suit and get as close to the colony nearest the rebel command colony. Once there, their mobile suits will attack most likely. Play it off by taking a little bit of damage, then crash land on board the colony. Set it up so that it looks like they shot you down, then find a place to hide," Sally told him, "Oh, and make sure you leave them thinking you're dead."

"Damn, I have to sacrifice my mecha!" Duo argued. "Well, it's not a gundam," Heero added. "What?!" Duo yelled out again. Heero then said, "As for me, I'll be flying to the colony on the opposite side of where you'll be. There, I'll also start a battle; but I will be there to destroy the mobile suits. It should attract their attention from the main headquarters. Most likely, they will send the suits from the old colony and the other close colonies. I can take care of them."

"As for myself and Wufei," Sally started to say, "We'll be piloting a second transport to Z-11192, and Wufei is going have a Serpent suit on board in case I need protection from any unwanted visitors," she said smiling at Wufei, who agreed to go along with the plan.

"Trowa is going to pilot a Serpent and follow Heero and help him fight off the suits. We think it will make them want to send more suits their way," Sally said to them. "And Duo, once they send troops toward them, take over a mobile-suit carrier and pilot it toward the colony. When you get close enough, Trowa will fire a smoke dart into you. It will look as if you've been hit, and you will have to veer off toward the old colony to land. Make another crash landing, except make sure the transport is alright," she told him as he almost blushed, "we want to get everyone out alive."

"Alright, so I get to be the chauffeur today?" Duo said sighing. "Oh, well, at least I'm not a target for hundreds of mobile suits to shoot at me," he said laughing at Trowa and Heero. "Maxwell, you're weak," Heero said.

"Wha..," Wufei said opening his eyes, "nicely said Yuy, you beat me to it." Everyone laughed at Wufei's remark. Duo was getting mad, "That's not funny!"

When everyone stopped laughing, Sally continued with the plan. "After Wufei and I sneak past the colonies, we're going to ram this transport into the command colony's main office," she said, "it ought to piss them off. Then when they threaten us with hostages, we'll laugh at them, because we'll have rescued them."

The plan sounded good to all of the pilots and the Preventor's. Relena wasn't into the plan as much because of the war that it was bringing, but she said they could do it. The operation would start at 08:00 the next morning.

* * *

Heero woke up and got dressed and ready to go quite fast, and quiet too. He ate a quick breakfast, then he walked over to Solo, who was still sound asleep, and yanked his braid. "Oowww..." he barely said as his eyes crept open. "Get up sleepy. We leave in 15 minutes," Heero said as he walked out of the room. Solo yawned and fell out of the bed screaming, "Shit!" He jumped up off of the metal floor and his braid just jumped around with a mind of its own. "Damn that's cold!" he yelled out rubbing his arms. He finally felt a little warmer, so he decided it was time to put his clothes on as. He found some stuff for breakfast and quickly ate so he wouldn't be starving. His appetite was quite different than his father's, the bottomless pit. He ran after Heero in the mobile suit room.

Heero and Solo went up the elevator to their gundams. "Well, lets go to space and see what we can do," Solo said, before stretching. He then gave out a little yawn, before rubbing his eyes. He was still tired as hell. They both walked to their respective gundams and jumped into the cockpits. Heero had located an old base where experimental mobile suit launching boosters had been tested. They were external boosters fitted to mobile suits to allow them to be shot into outer space without the need of a large carrier. They fitted theirs own the night before and were now ready to go.

Each of them walked out of the base and stood side by side. Within seconds the large booster systems ignited and the small mobile suits were propelled into the air onward toward space. Each set his boosters to max and they zipped on through the air toward their destination.

* * *

"It's time, we start now," Sally said as Duo nodded. He ran over to his suit and jumped into the black Leo. He built it out of some of the Neo Titanium, making it quite strong. "I'm ready to go," he said as he flew out of the hangar. Heero and Trowa followed him out and they parted their separate ways. Wufei and Sally got inside of the transport and were waiting until 08:30 to start their mission.

"Aunt Relena," Wind asked curiously from behind the crowd of people, "why wasn't I included into this mission?"

"They wanted you to stay behind and protect us. You are the only hope we have against any army," she said to him, "we have only 10 pilots with not-so-great mobile suits, so your help is greatly needed," she replied to him smiling. "Oh, ok. That can make since," he said. They walked back into the large command room aboard the colony.

It was a deep room with computers on the walls. They were the only visible lights besides the light from earth and the stars in the viewport. There were only two doors leading in or out of the room. One was on the right side and the other in the rear. Relena and Wind stood right next to the large, 6-foot high viewport. It was as wide as the room. The room was not lit at all by artificial light, making it one of the most peaceful areas aboard the loud colony.

"Space… it's so cold," Wind said in a whisper. Relena heard him. He looked out the large viewport and toward Earth, which was barely visible in the far right of the window. "Aunt Relena," Wind said, "what is earth like?"

"Huh," she said looking at him, "well, It's very peaceful. Fresh air, small towns and cities, lots of people," she replied closing her eyes and imaging places that she grew up in. "There is the beach, which is quiet and calm. It's nothing like the space colonies," she said. "And it's not like Mars either," he said to her comment.

* * *

Duo came flying passed a colony without being seen. Good thing his suit was solid black, it helped. He started to approach the correct colony, so he ignited his beam sabre. When he got close enough, he fired a few shots at the suits, which had not noticed him yet. He figured out they were manned suits, not mobile dolls. He shot at one, and it connected with the suit and caused it to blow up. "Whoa, lucky shot!" he said with his wicked fighting smile on his face as he flew into the mob. "Look out boys," he said, "Shinigami is back!"

Duo flew into the large group of suits shooting many more random shots. He fired a shot right into the cockpit of a Taurus suit, causing it to explode. He spun around and sliced another suit, then shot it to make it exploded as well. When he flipped back around, he was shot a few times in the chest of his suit by beam rifles from other suits. "Thank Shinigami that this suit was made with neo titanium alloy!" he said as he shot the suit and blew it up. A laser rifle shot off his suit's left arm, with the shield and beam sabre. "Damn! A laser rifle, I have to be careful!" He cursed out, spinning around shooting at the laser rifle-toting suit. It dodged him and then fired again, but he was quick enough to fly above the suit. He fired a few shots at it in a scattered formation. The suit tried to dodge, but the pilot was un-experienced and didn't know what to do, and one of the many shots hit the main camera destroying it. He took the liberty to fire a clear shot at the cockpit. It blasted right through as the suit was knocked back. The suit flashed a bright light, then exploded into a million pieces. He wiped the sweat from his head, as he flew toward the landing bay of the colony that he was fighting closer too. One of the suits shot him with a beam cannon and it blew one of the legs off and caused his suit to smoke.

"Hey, great, you added to the fake effects!" Duo said as he laughed. Except he knew he had to be careful since they actually damaged him. His black suit slammed against the far inside wall of the landing bay. It didn't take long for Duo to fly out of the cockpit. He set the self-destruction device for only 8 seconds, so he had to hurry. He was lucky that a door to the inside of the colony was partially opened. He squeezed himself inside and shut it behind him quickly. He continued to run until he found a place in an air duct to hide in, from which he could wait until 09:45, when his next mission began.

His black suit made a huge explosion that rocked the landing bay. It destroyed 4 other mobile suits that were nearby. The attacking mobile suits presumed that the shot blew it up. Duo laughed to himself, knowing that the plan had worked, or the alarm would have sounded. Just then, an alarm sounded. "Holy shit!" he said almost too loud, but then he calmed down. The intercom system was announcing that they needed mobile suits from this colony to go help in the fight against 2 rebellious suits fighting near Z-202021. Duo nodded to himself knowing that everything was going well so far.

Heero and Trowa had already battled off nearly 40 mobile suits. Trowa flew the Serpent up in front of two mobile suits, then just rapidly fired the two double-gattling guns that he toted. The Serpent was much like the HeavyArms, so Trowa could make use with it easily. The two Taurus' were riddled with ammunition, before they both exploded. He spun around and fired two missiles into the on-coming Taurus suit. They destroyed the suit easily.

Heero wasn't using his buster rifle much at all. He just held it in his left hand just in case. Most suits were trying to run away from him. He just flew up behind them and either sliced them into pieces, stabbed the cockpits from the rear, or used his vulcans to destroy them. Three Taurus' tried to take him on by firing their beam cannons at him. One hit him and bounced off as the other scored a hit, causing a small piece of the gundanium alloy to break off and that spot lightly smoked. They continued to fire, while Heero maneuvered passed the shots and sliced two of them in half with once swipe, then spun around and used his vulcans to riddle the other Taurus, until they all exploded.

"Hey, Heero, I have a group of 18 more suits coming in. They are from the colony Duo went too," Trowa told him. "All right, then we just need to take care of them too, as well as these last 5 stragglers," he said back to Trowa. "Roger," Trowa replied before shooting many rounds through a Taurus. It creaked as it tried to move, then exploding hurling bits and pieces of titanium into the face of the Serpent.

Sally had flown up extremely close to the colony. She was surprised that they haven't caused any attention to the nearby suits. Her pass codes seemed to work for getting by two patrols. "We're almost to the colony Wufei," she said to him, while he sat in the Serpent suit. "You'll be able to come up here soon, the colony is within range," she continued to tell him. She took his quietness as a reply to the answer.

Wufei had his eyes closed and his arms crossed. He was waiting the moment that he would have to fire up the Serpent and jump out of the transport to help protect Sally until she could find a safe dock. He sighed before almost falling asleep.

Duo has successfully stolen a transport that was going to the old colony to drop off food supplies. The old colony was basically just a huge, round hunk of metal. No supplies at all were left there, not even while the Barton Foundation used the colony to rebuild the Peacemillion. He saw Sally's transport far off, and realized he was right on time. He sent the authorization code and it was accepted. He flew the transport into the dock and some of the men went to work. He went out acting like he was going to take a break in the lounge, then disappeared into the colony. It was indeed very old. Most of the floors creaked when walked on and there was dirt, grime and lots of very black-looking walls everywhere. "Man, and I thought some other colonies were bad," he said shaking his head in shame.

"Ah ah," he said as he reached the weather control room of the colony. He thought a little 'natural disaster' would be good for the colony. He was amazed that it still worked when he started the rain system. He made sure to over power the system, so it was more like a thunderstorm, just without the thunder and lightning…

The soldiers guarding the hostages started to get wet fast, so they decided to move them inside a building. Just then, Duo came up behind them and put a gun to one their heads. The others looked at him. He had his wicked smile on his face. "Ok, put your weapons down!" he yelled at them. They did as he told, even the one with gun pointed at him. He was shaking now, not only because he was wet, but also because he was very nervous.

He hit the guy on the back of the neck with the but of the pistol and he fell over knocked out. The other 3 were pushed away by Duo to an area where he locked them in a room. He made the locks on the door worked and then took off back toward the hostages.

"Hey, all of you come with me, we're escaping this colony," he said to them. "Just follow me," he said as he brought them through a back passage through the colony to the transport ship. He had to sneak them on slowly because of the Barton Foundation workers whom were doing maintenance on suits and filling up the transports with empty containers.

"Duo, come in," Sally said over their personal headsets. "Yeah, I'm here. What's going on?" he said to her. "The Earth Sphere Colony is under attack," she told him. "Damn! Well, at least Wind is there," he said to her, "they bombed the hangar on their first run and it crippled the Tallgeese III's left arm and vernians," she said to him, "it also blocked the hangar so no other suits could leave."

"Shit, well, I just got the hostages out. We are heading out of the landing bay now," he said as the transport finished backing out of the colony.

"Heero and Trowa got a load of Serpent suits that are being sent their way, which means they should be passing you shortly," she said. Duo glanced out the viewport and saw a mob of suits approaching the colony, about to fly around it to the battle on the other side. A few flew from over the top of the transport toward the colony. "Well, I'm outta here," Duo said to her as he fired the transports engines into full power after swinging the huge vessel around.

The Wing Zero's radar showed the new group of suits coming his way, so Heero flew the Wing Zero toward the old colony. Another dozen suits showed up after Heero and Trowa managed to destroy the other 5 suits. Many of them followed Heero as he flew close to the surface of the colony, just barely skimming it. Trowa was away from him still shooting apart mobile suits.

Heero flew near the center of the colony, then yanked back on the controls. The Wing Zero did a pitch straight up into the air. It did a 540 before flipping over. He came down positioning himself high above the colony, before holding up the twin buster rifle. "Trowa, get back, I'm going to blow up this colony," he said. And without any further warning, he gladly pulled the trigger. A huge, arc of power blazed out of the cannon as the beam struck the top of the colony. The outer material caused a delay in the beams' entrance to the colony's insides, but before long it melted through. It continued to shoot through the insides of the colony. The blast vaporized a few miles of an old business district in the colony. It finally reached the other side of the colony, where it busted out. The sides of the colony started to explode and huge gaps of fire erupted from holes left by the explosions. The colony sparked and flared with fire.

The Serpent suits that were skimming across the surface of the colony toward Heero didn't see him aim his energy cannon. Before they had time to think, the bright blast blinded them. In mere seconds the suits were engulfed in the bright yellow-organ energy beam. From far off, Trowa saw the beam from the rifle as it hit the colony. Soon after, a few small explosions could be seen around the top of the colony where the blast hit. "Heh, some people never learn to keep clear," Trowa said smirking.

The recoil energy hit the Wing Zero with great force. It ripped apart the wings of his suit a little bit and some of the gundanium on the chest started to melt. "Damn it!" Heero cursed, "I thought I fixed the recoil energy enough to not do this damage!"

Trowa, and many other pilots, just watched as the colony made its final explosion sending it into molten pieces that melted away from the colony that not longer exists.

"Mission," Heero said taking in deep breath, "complete." The buster rifle was emitting electricity all around it's barrels, which the ends were completely melted away. The right side of the rifle exploded, causing the other side to enter the same dangerous state of self-destruction. Heero took action quickly, and tried to the drop the rifle and fly away, but the he was caught in the blast, which melted away more of the front armor of his gundam. "Damn!"

He fired the thrusters and took off back toward the Earth Sphere Colony. Trowa finished destroying the last suit near the other colonies, then headed back himself. Duo was about one-third the way back to the colony already.

* * *

"Sir, we have reports that a gundam and a Serpent suit destroyed the colony Z-11192," the messenger from earlier told his boss. "What?!" he said spinning around quickly. "There were many Earth Sphere workers and officers aboard that colony," he told him. "I know sir, but just go word that they were rescued during this recent attack," he said trying not to shudder at the thoughts of a raging mad Barton. "DAMMIT!!" he yelled aloud. "Get me a direct link to Fenald this instant!" he demanded. "Yes, sir!" he replied back, before calling up communications to link him to the command colony.

The main screen buzzed, then an image of Fenald appeared. "Sir, we have had unexpected difficulties here, I can't believe it," he began to say holding reports from the recent actions. "I don't wish to hear it, Fenald, I am just thankful that it happened now, rather than much earlier," he said to him. Earlier would have probably crushed them. They would have lost the Peacemillion most likely and then Part C of their operation would be halted. By having the suits on earth destroyed, Part B went bad to say the least. "We are in position here," he said to Fenald. "Sir, what do you--" he was trying to say. "I want you to take charge at the head of the suits heading toward Moscow! You can manage from there!" he said. "Leave my site at once," he demanded, turning away waving his hand at the image as it disappeared from the screen.

* * *

Solo and Heero came flying toward the Earth Sphere Colony. They had picked up a few dozen suits attacking it on their radar. Many small explosions were visible from where they were. They noted that there were only 28 suits left. "Hey, they're under attack!" Solo yelled to Heero. "I wonder where everyone else is?" Heero said to him. They watched, as the colony's few beam cannons shot again and again at the mobile dolls. It didn't take much of the dolls to make short work of a few of the cannons. "Anyway, let's go get those suits. We don't want to loose anyone on that colony," he said firing his thrusters harder and he flew to the colony. Heero followed him close behind.

They both flew right into combat, taking out a few of the mobile dolls easily. "Hey, these suits have just the same amount of planet defensers' as the others did on earth," Solo said to Heero. "Yep, but these are faster and they don't have as quite as much fire power," he replied to Solo. Heero was using his laser rifle more in space since it was working so well. He melted 5 suits at once with a good, high powered double barrel shot. It overloaded the cooling unit, so he had to put it back into storage. The suits that he hit slowly exploded. He flew up to another and sliced it with his beam sabre. He spun around to one shooting at him, so he took the opportunity to use his laser vulcans against it while its shield was down. The shots nailed through the mecha, but he slammed into it with the sabre just to make sure, as it blew up.

Solo flew up to a few and sliced them into titanium shreds. They were much easier than the Mercurius and Vaye-Ate suits they had fought a day earlier. He sliced one into halves with his warblades. An explosion followed behind his vernians boost. He flew right into another one, which caused it to break, literally, into pieces. The cheap titanium suits were like toys. He kicked the weak suit with the spike on the tip of his right foot. It ripped up through the bottom of the suit to the cockpit. Solo swung the huge scythe at the suit and sliced it horizontally taking its main camera off. The edges where the slice was were read from the heat of the weapon. The suit's insides glowed red. Momentarily each system was destroyed as the damage caused the suit to explode in a violent sphere of fire.

Some of the suits fired at him, but the shots bounced off of the chest of his suit. "Ha, you stupid mobile dolls!" he said as he thanking himself for installing the added defense of the energy shield. Solo had already learned their strategy of fighting by watching them for not long. They were all the same. The suit hurled through space as he flew into another mob of suits in the distance. Small explosions could be immediately seen.

* * *

Relena and Wind watched the battle take place outside. "It's those suits again!" Sally said as she came up behind Relena. "I'm back, we took care of our job, but we had to lose the transport when it was finally attacked at the last checkpoint," she said to her, "I rod back in the cockpit with Wufei in the Serpent."

"Oh, well, I'm glad you are alright," she said toward her. "So, these are the mystery suits?" she said pointing toward the gundams that were fighting outside. "Yeah, but they are helping us, so they must be good," Sally said taking a good look for herself. "Aunt Relena," Wind said, "are these not the Deathscythe and Wing Zero?"

"Well, technically they are, but they aren't the real ones. They must be copies," she said to her nephew. "Oh, strange," he replied thinking about it.

Heero came falling down, slicing one suit into two pieces. He spun around, then flew backward firing his vulcans. The shots hit and destroyed another suit. He ran into another mobile doll flying backward, but he had his beam sabre pointed backward. The blade went through the cockpit. He pulled it out, then turned and gave it a diagonal swipe across the chest making it break into pieces. This suit didn't explode, so he shot his vulcans at it. The main body blew up afterward, but the limbs didn't. "Heh, strange suits," Heero said to himself. "Hey, that's all of them," he said to Solo. "Yeah, I know," he replied. "What now?" he asked.

"Let's go inside. I know they would like to know what's going on," Heero said flying toward the colony. Solo came up right behind him and turned off his massive, thermal scythe.

Trowa and Heero had just returned to the colony when the last suits were being destroyed. They went to the hangar and broke it open, then entered and landed their suits. Heero came out of his cockpit. "Hey, can you get to work on my suit?" he asked Duo's sweeper friend. "Sure Mr. Yuy, I'll get on it right away," he replied as he whistled to his fellow workers to come up to the suit. Trowa got out of his suit and jumped down to the main deck. "That plan went very well I must say," he said, "I had my doubts."

"I did as well, but good thing it worked," Heero replied as they walked down the hall to the control room.

Heero and Solo came and landed in the hanger as well. The workers turned and starred at them as they made their way through the crowded and damaged bay. They walked the suits to the far corner in the back, away from the workers, before they jumped out. Heero motioned Solo to the direction of the door. They both floated down to it then went inside. "I guess we'll go see our parents," Heero said as he walked down the hall. He found a computer and quickly located the control room, which was being used at the command center. "It's this way," he said to Solo walking to an elevator. They reached a new floor with a lot of people. He walked down the hall in front of them, then took a left. He came to the door and stopped. He stood there for a minute with his finger about to push the button to open the door. "Heero?" Solo asked him. "I'm sorry, It's just that I haven't seen my mother or father in a long time," he said, "and then to have a gundam."

He looked at Solo who nodded to him. Heero pressed the button and the door hissed open. He walked in, followed by Solo who looked around at the people inside. There was a group of people standing at the far end of the darkened room looking out of the window into space. It was quite dark in the room, with most of the light coming from outside in space.

"HEERO!" Relena yelled out as she spotted her son across the room. "Yes, Relena?" the older Heero said as he looked at his fiancé. Her eyes were wide. "No, over there, our son," she said pointing. "What?!" he said as he turned to see him. "Heero," the father said to his son in a low mannered tone.

"Mom… dad…" he couldn't keep from saying in almost a whisper. Relena rushed over to him and gave him hug. She had tears coming down her face. "You're alright!" she said to him. "Yes, I'm fine mother," he said as he hugged her back. His father walked over to him with his arms crossed. "And where have you been?" Heero said, continuing his death glare and harsh tone of voice. "Do you really want to know?" he replied. "_Yes_!" his father screamed. Everyone was looking at them now. No one had ever seen Heero mad. It was a new experience for everyone. "I was in Edward, California. I stayed at their military base for the last few months and I, with the help of my friend," he said pointing to Solo, who was leaning against the wall, almost camouflaged with it because of his black attire, "built those two gundams that have been seen on TV."

"_Huh?!_ … But," Heero began to say, "…how?" Heero made a mental note to ponder on that thought later when he was alone. "So, you two are the pilots of those new gundams!" His father yelled at him. "Yes, we are," he replied, "and thanks for telling us about your past too, _father_."

Heero narrowed his eyes even smaller than they were at his son. "It was erased for a reason, _Jr._," he said to him, "It was painful and it brings back dreaded memories every time I see a mobile suit." Heero Jr. just took the answer and was left without another question. He continued to look at his father. His mother stood back and just watched the feud between father and son. It was weird. Looking at two, identical twins. Relena's son was just about 4 inches shorter than his father was. They were both wearing the same attire also. Heero's classic green, tank top shirt and tight, black pants.

"You must be Solo, right?" Heero said looking at him. "My name is shinigami," he said to him. "Heh, just like your father," he said smirking, "a Maxwell is a Maxwell."

"Well, I can't deny that," he said as the Maxwell wicked grin came up on his face. "You're right," Heero said, then hearing a loud beeping sound, "ah, and here comes your father now."

Duo accidentally came too close when he was docking the transport next to the colony. There was a second transport that was with him. "Hey, guys, I'm back," Duo said jumping out of the transport. He landed on the ground and looked at his son. He had a shocked look cross his face. "Solo?" he asked. "Yeah, it's me dad," he replied. "What the hell are you doing here?" he demanded to know narrowing his eyes on him. "I..." he said, as he started to mumble some things. 

"Look, Maxwell," Heero said getting his attention, "he's one of the pilots of those new gundams. And my son is the other," he said to him. "You've got to be kidding me!" Duo said with a stone cold voice starring at his son. He walked over to him and pulled him into a backroom by his braid, which caused much pain in Solo.

The passengers were getting off of the two transports and pouring into the open area in the colony. One of them approached Relena, Sally, and the gundam pilots. "Trowa?" she said to him. "Hmm?" he replied, "who are you?"

"You don't' recognize me, Trowa," she said, holding up the white cross that he once wore one time as a child many years ago. His memory flashed back to that day nearly 20 years earlier. His eyes widened in shock. "Oh… it's you," he slowly said out, "Mi.. Middi?" he said. "Yes, it's me Trowa," she said as she gave him a hug while smiling. "What are you doing here?" he asked her. "I am one of the few survivors that the Earth Sphere transport found on Mars. We were attacked by mobile suits and they destroyed everything, and I didn't think I was going to survive," she said as she looked into his eyes. They were sparkling and Trowa had one of his rare smiles on his face. Everyone else decided to leave them alone as they walked back inside. "I'm glad to see that you are all right. Please, come inside with us. I want you to meet some of my friends," Trowa said as he took her hand and led her into the command center in the colony.

Wind looked at the group of people coming into the colony as he walked toward the door. He first thought he was daydreaming, but then he saw his father. "DAD!" he yelled out as he ran to his aid. His father's left arm was in a sling and his left leg had a splint on it, with heavy bandaging and tape. "Wind," he said very relieved as his son came up to him. Wind put his father's right arm around his neck as he tried to support him. He had tears coming down his face. "I thought you died father, when I saw the building collapse and explode when I left," he said to him. "So did I son, so did I; but then there was hope," he said, "your Aunt had sent a transport to Mars to see what was going on, but they didn't realize what they were in for."

"I'm just glad that you're ok," he said. "Milliardo!" Relena screamed out as she saw her injured brother. "Hey sis," he said as he groaned in pain. Relena called for someone to get him a doctor immediately. Wind was still trying to hold him up. "I'm alright, I can stand for now," he said to her. "I'm glad you're all right brother."

"Yeah, so am I, but," he said, "I can't say that about my wife." He looked the other way out into the darkness of space. "I think she died in the attack," he finished telling her. "I couldn't find her, nor any of the others."

"She… died?" Relena said shocked. Her eyes widened in pain, then they started to tear. "Oh, no, that can't be…"

Relena started to cry over her lost friend. Noin was close to all of the pilots and their wives and families. "Who attacked you?" she asked him. A wheelchair was brought to him with the doctor and he sat down in it. Milliardo was wheeled off to the medical lab to treat his injuries. Everyone else walked went back to command room saddened greatly.

In the morning, Relena and the others filled everyone in on the current situation. "Yuy, I see you're sill alive," Zechs said as he saw Heero walk up from far behind them. "Zechs," Heero said shocked to see him, "and you look like you've seen hell."

He nodded. "I have and it's not a pleasant place," he replied.

"Yesterday was a big day," Sally said to everyone in the room. "We've all gotten some needed rest for today I hope," she said, "because I know that the Barton Foundation won't be pleased with what we have done to them." They all started planning for the rest of what was to come. They were not even half way done with stopping their enemy in his tracks. At the present time, the Barton Foundation still has the upper hand.

* * *

"Sir, Operation Daybreak is under way. We will reach the earth's atmosphere in the next 4 hours," said the Commander of the Peacemillion to his leader, Max Barton. "I have arranged for the broadcast of the Moscow Massacre to be live here for you," he said before bowing and leaving the Barton to himself. "Well, lets see how well you do now Fenald! Dare to let me down," he said smirking. "He better not fail in bringing down Moscow, it's too critical a move in this strategic chess game of mine," he said before laughing, "until morning, my dear _earth_!"

Chapter 5: Twin Massacres


	5. Twin Massacres

Gundam Wing: _Ended Waltz_

By: Qasur Zephlar Exlarr

Chapter 5: Twin Massacres

It was a very stormy day for Moscow. They had been experiencing some major snow over the last many days. Winter was right around the corner, but yet Moscow had a clear view. The Preventors Agency office was over crowded with workers running everywhere in a huge mess. They had been dealing with the mess in outer space for a little more than a week.

The PPA (Preventor's Protection Agency) had brought in many old, retired Admirals and Generals. They had them around the Agency helping them try to figure out what the ORSCs were going to do next. General Otto believed they would try another attempt at coming to earth. They didn't have quite enough suits to completely take over all of the political cities, but they could come after a few. Admiral Necaise believed that they would try to take over Australia and Antarctica. The old military base on the icy land mass still existed. Nothing was done to remove it from existence. Australia became more a garage for the old military equipment. Most of the facilities were crowded with mobile suit equipment and the assembly plants weren't destroyed. The Preventors had a huge guard down under. They had to take precautions.

The people who were second in command to Sally and Wufei, who stayed on Earth, kept both of those ideas fresh in their heads as they made decisions as to what to do. They had put on a second guard in Australia. They sent two squadrons of mobile suits to the Antarctica Base, and put a squadron, each, of their most elite (well you couldn't call them really elite because most of their pilots were older guys who were once in the army) pilots in both, Moscow and Luxembourg.

One guy was starring outside into the gray-lit day. Clouds flashed as thunder could be heard. The snow was still rapidly falling down. He sighed before turning back around to his work. It was going to be another long, boring day. People were still running around the office. Some who were passing by just tossed more and more papers on top of his cluttered desk. The man's head dropped and hit the desk with a thud. Suddenly the building shook as a loud sound was heard coming from outside. He quickly tossed his head up with widened eyes and looked outside. He scanned the darkened city for a few seconds before a few explosions could be seen through the city.

Everyone in the PPA started running and screaming for help. A few people were calm enough to control themselves and they were calling Sally and Wufei. Suddenly a mobile suit dropped down right next to the PPA's building. The man inside was scared and slowly crawling backward onto his desk with his hands up swaying them around. "P..pl..please… don't shoot," he said. The suit's head turned around to face him, before the rest of the suit followed. The shoulders snapped open and the missiles inside were launched directly into the side of the building at point-blank-range.

The man's eyes widened and everything in his life flashed before his eyes. Time slowed down and paused as the missile's approached the building with their fiery and glaring rockets left a smoke trail behind them. The man was slowly moving backward with a freaked look on his face. Everyone was running and dashing for cover as others ducked under desks and jumped out of the way. Then suddenly time sped back up immediately. He let a last gasp as the missiles broke through the glass.

Each missile went through a different floor. They collided against the solid concrete pillars holding the building erect. It caused the middle 15 floors of the PPA building to be annihilated. The explosion and sudden erosion of the supporting pillars caused the top section of the building to come falling down into the rest of it. Smoke, dust, concrete and glass were seen slowly falling and exploding as the building shook and tumbled straight down to the street.

The mobile suit turned and flew off firing its dual gattling gun at a guarding mobile suit. The Serpent suit noted the event take place quickly and efficiently at best. The PPA building crumbled into a pile of rubble as the guarding Taurus suit was destroyed, sending parts of it on top of the destroyed building.

A Taurus suit hovering high above the city merely saw it collapse. Explosions were erupting here and there on the monitors. Serpent mobile suits were flying around and causing a massacre in the city. The suit caught a glimpse of one of these mobile suits. It was flying toward him. Being very inexperienced, he couldn't really fight back. He quickly fired off a few rounds from his standard issue beam rifle. His luck wasn't running strong. Not one shot even came close to hitting the bulky, yet swift, mobile suit.

The serpent's shoulder's flung open. It revealed a nearly empty missile bay. The pilot fired his 2 remaining missiles toward the Taurus. The pilot fired the thrusters and flew off in an attempt to escape the deadly path of the smoking syringes of death. Before long, the projectiles slammed into the back of the mobile suit and, blowing it apart into millions of pieces.

* * *

In the morning, everyone started to gather in the large command room aboard the space colony X-199987. They were presently unaware of the events taking place upon the earth. The pilots had slowly entered. Most of them had just woken up.

Duo yawned as he leaned back in a chair. Heero was resting against the wall standing up. He had his eyes closed. Wufei was sitting in a chair near the viewport starring out into space with his arms crossed. Sally had her arms draped around his neck from behind. Trowa was sitting across the room in a chair. Midii was sitting in his lap with her arms around his neck and her head resting on his left shoulder. Trowa had one of his rare smiles upon his face.

Relena slowly entered the room and moved toward the group. She covered her mouth as she yawned. She noted what everyone was doing in the room. Most of them were sitting around, with or without their companions. Everyone had been through a lot recently. The mars crew returned with all survivors and the operation went quite well, including Heero's massive, unexpected destruction of the colony. Things seem to be going well so far. They have weakened the defenses of the newly born Barton Foundation.

A few minutes later, a messenger entered the room and slowly progressed towards Relena. He held out his hand carrying a slip of paper. Her eyes widened while moving from left to right as she took in the note.

"Oh, my god…" she silently said. She brought her land hand up to her mouth in awe. Heero heard her and opened his eyes as he leaned away from the wall that he so comfortably liked.

"Is something wrong, Relena?" he asked. The other heads slowly turned toward her and looked upon what she was doing. "The Barton Foundation…. They…" she was saying, "… they attacked Moscow." Heero's eyes narrowed even more than they were. He said _Barton Foundation_ under his breath with angered intentions. "It's gone… there isn't anything left," she said. Her hand fell down, as the note slipped out and hit the floor. A tear had formed in her right eye, and started to slowly fall down her light skinned cheek.

Relena whirled around to everyone else. "Serpents were spotted and they soon attacked the city. They destroyed the Preventors Agency and left it as nothing but rubble…. All those people," she said as she let another tear out. "The entire city is," she said sobbing, "just in ruins." Heero walked over to her. He lifted her face up with his right hand. Using his left hand, he rubbed away a few of her tears from her eyes.

"Relena," he said to her in a tone not noted for being the old-fashioned Heero, "they're gonna die." He had a deep gaze on her, until he turned and ran to the door. He pushed the button and the door hissed open. He jumped through and continued down the hallway. Everyone knew where he was going.

"Good thing we brought Nataku up here with us to space," Sally said toward her husband as she approached Relena. She hugged her and led her to a seat so that she may sit and recover from the disaster that has occurred. Relena cried against her shoulder as Sally was talking to her.

* * *

In the hangar, Heero was sprawling around inside of Wing Zero as he was making sure all of the components worked since he last used it. He always kept his Gundam in better than mint condition, unless he was using it to battle. Many a time he didn't return it in one piece… or two… and sometimes in more than a few thousand. While he was busy preparing his Gundam for launch, the other pilots entered.

"Hey, Heero," Duo yelled up to him, "I'm going to contact Quatre. If I'm correct, he's in Luxembourg." Heero came out of his suit. 

"Ok, tell him to see if he can get some military support. It will take us a few hours to get there if we leave now," he replied back to him. He then disappeared back into his suit.

"Heero," Wufei said aloud to gain his attention, "Relena's note also mentioned that the Peacemillion has now reappeared on the opposite side of the Earth." Heero stepped out and narrowed his eyes at him. "It's in orbit directly above Europe," Wufei then added.

"I bet they have other plans then. I'm going after the Peacemillion then," he said to Wufei. "I destroyed the Libra, so this shouldn't be too difficult," he added as he laughed to himself. Heero had too much power, and he realized that he did. He still laughed at his insane gift, but he at least didn't' abuse it.

"Wind," Sally said to him as she crept up behind the pilots, "your mobile suit was fully repaired for you. It's ready to go." Wind turned to her and nodded his head in agreement.

"Father, I'll go to Earth. Please, let me," he said as he asked Milliardo. Zechs was sitting in a wheel chair that he was using to get around. Sally suggested he take it extremely easy in his current physical state and condition. Zechs closed his eyes; and he then nodded confirmation to his son. He believed that Wind was very capable of taking care of those mobile suits. He was his son after all.

"Thank you father," he said happily. "You know I've never been to Earth. This shall be my first time, and it being my first time and I am going to shed blood upon it. Wouldn't you consider that irony?" he asked, in generally to everyone. No one answered, but they all were thinking about what he said in their own minds.

It was true. People came to earth, to kill; no one came to live peacefully. That was the purpose of the colonies: safe places to live after leaving the battle scarred, blood raged Earth. Sad it was, but inevitable it was as well.

"You won't be the only one to go to earth," Solo said," I'll go with you."

He said as he patted him on the back, with that usual Maxwell grin upon his face.

"Like Hell you will!" Duo immediately chimed in. Solo turned to see Duo's hell-raged face starring him down. "You aren't going to go back out fighting," Duo said to him, "your mother doesn't even know where you are, let alone that you are fighting with a damned mobile suit! Hell, she doesn't even like it when _I_ pilot one!"

"Dad, it's not like I can't fight! Look what Heero and I did back at home!" he exclaimed to his father. "We took out many mobile suits; and I did take some minor damages, but those were repaired in a matter of a few days."

"I know what you did, Solo. I'm not stupid enough to see your skills, but I won't let you risk your life again! I have a responsibility as a parent too! I won't see one of my children get hurt!" he yelled at him.

"I won't get hurt! Hell, I've done a lot of stunts since I was really little and I have only broken my left arm and my left collarbone!" he yelled back at him. "It's not like mother has to know about it, dad," he said coldly. He narrowed his eyes and then crossed his arms as he leaned on his left foot. It was an exact resemblance to the man standing across from him. "Dad, I know you love me, but please," he said, calming down a bit, " just let me go! I can go meet up with your friend Quatre. I'll be with Wind too, so it's not like I'm going alone," he said.

Duo sighed. He saw himself in front of him. The same stubborn and hardheaded 16-year old he had been. Hilde tried to keep him from fighting, but all she managed to do was fall in love with him and get pregnant.

Duo looked at his son with intense eyes, sighed, then he walked up to his son and placed his hands on his shoulders as he stood over him. Duo nodded his head slowly; signaling is final approval of it. "All right then son. If this is what you want to do, I'll let you. I've done my duty as a father to try and protect you; but it was you who decided," Duo said to his son, then added, "I hope that the God of Death lends his blood-stained to you."

"I know dad, but trust me. I'll be OK," chibi shinigami said to his father. "And about shinigami, don't need to worry about that. He was with me during my first battle," he said to his father, the original God of Death. Solo turned to Wind and said, "Ok, are we ready to go?"

"I am," he replied, "and I believe our suits are as well." Wind waved good-bye to everyone before he turned and pushed off the floor and floated up to his mobile suit's cockpit entrance. Solo turned to his father and nodded his head, and then he too turned and pushed off toward his suit. He had his father's sweeper friends run maintenance on the suit for him and Heero Jr. Both pilots entered their suits and the cockpits closed around them, locking them inside their metal sarcophaguses. 

The two mobile suits proceeded to fire their engines and leave the mobile suit bay of the colony. Duo and everyone else just sat back and watched as they flew off toward the Earth. Heero and the others went back inside to determine what was to be done with the remaining Barton Foundation forces in the last few renegade colonies.

"I can attack their base colony directly and destroy it for all purpose," Heero said to his fellow comrades. Everyone looked at him with astonishment. He hasn't tried to fully save a life since he started out on his mission after the Barton foundation regained control and mobile suits. Heero took the looks from the others as a sign of what he has said and done over the past few days. "I'll try to save as many lives as I can in the process, but it's not guaranteed."

"I'll lend a hand again at attacking their main forces, and with the help of Wufei, we can stop this Barton Conglomerate for the last time," Trowa spoke up and said. "This has gone on for long enough," he began, "and I've seen what all they have done over the years since I was little." He turned to look at Midii and spoke, "It's caused a lot of pain and many losses for me and for people close to me, so I want to confront The Barton myself once this is all over."

"Well, I don't think I completely direct mobile suit attack would be the proper approach," Heero replied. "It's just too easy to put a lot forces our way and leave them well protected from within."

"I thought so," Trowa said with a sigh, "I guess I'll go back to my standard guard duty. This way I'll be able to get a hold of their chief." Trowa thought about the past and everything that he had been through with his mercenary buddies: From simple mobile suit combat to wars with the corrupted Earth Sphere Unified Alliance to the whole one-year-war with the White Fang organization. "It's time," he said to Heero. "I'm going to take a transport to their colony. I think I have some information that I can use to get us the proper ID to passage through their security," Trowa said to him.

"Relena," Heero said, gaining her attention, "I'll be back shortly. This shouldn't take too long at all. If things go as planned, this operation will complete within the next 5 hours." Relena looked at her husband with loving eyes knowing that he was trying his best to make things right after all that had happened. She was glad on her own accord because she finally had her son back. How she had missed him while he was gone.

"Dad, what can I do?" chibi-Heero asked his father as he walked up to him. "I still have my mobile suit that I built and it's here aboard this colony. I thought maybe I could help you out there in space with the forces of the Barton Foundation."

"I'm still extremely mad at you son because not only did you run away from home and scare your mother, but you created a dreaded mobile suit," Heero said to his son, giving him the same look of death Heero gave to everyone. "I don't want you to get involved like Duo's son did. Save for the fact that you probably feel the same, if not more, need to get involved in all of this," the father said to the son. "So, I've decided to already to let you go. I knew that you were probably going to ask," he said abruptly.

Chibi-Heero only nodded to his father for recognition of his answer. Relena had formed a small tear in her left eye. She didn't want either of them to leave her now. She spent most of her time during the one-year war trying to keep Heero safe. She loved him and she didn't want anything to happen to him. She knew that he was an excellent mobile suit pilot, but that still doesn't mean that he will always come back alive. He was one to risk everything to accomplish a mission… even if he was his life he was risking.

"Well, we'll be ready to go very soon. Trowa had already departed from here and is on his way toward the colony now to infiltrate. Heero Jr. will accompany me to the colony so that we can destroy the remaining forces that Barton has," Heero said, laying the plan before everyone else in the room. "Once we've taken the colony, we will call for a transport to come pick everyone up."

"Wufei and I will do that for you Heero, since it's the least we can do to help you without interfering," Sally said and she smiled at Heero. She had helped him the most that either of the two could recall. She could only remember that day Duo broke him out of the Alliance hospital. How strong he was and how well trained. Everyone always wondered why he was the best, well; he was built to be the best. Or at least that's the best Sally could come up with.

* * *

It was time. Trowa was approaching the base renegade colony. His transport was carrying a cargo of food supplies. Easily enough, his ID information worked well enough to get him passed two of the security posts that guarded entrance into the colony. The third of the posts was going to be hard to fake. He didn't know the password of the key-code to gain entry into the colony. Duo didn't have any of his handy tools to lend Trowa to get him access. He would have to improvise.

Trowa fired the reverse boosters to bring the aging transport to a stop in the loading-unloading bay before getting out. He pushed off from the dinged, scratched surface to propel himself toward the hatch leading inside the colony. Trowa stopped short of the door by grabbing onto some storage boxes near it. He slowly floated toward the door and glanced toward the keypad and the microphone. He took a glance up to notice the camera that was monitoring him as he completed this process of the mission.

"That can't be… is it?" the Chief of the colony said as he watched Trowa come toward the hatch. "Would he dare come aboard the colony? It's been so long since I've seen him. It's amazing that he's still alive. I thought I had him back when that blonde-headed girl tricked his mercenary group into that ambush I informed the Alliance about," he said in a mumbled voice to himself. "heh, well it is good to see him. Too bad I'm going to have to finally kill him," he said.

Trowa reached for the controls to try and break the code, but as soon as he typed a word, the doors swung open and the hallway slowly lit up light-by-light going down the hall. Trowa narrowed his eyes. "Someone knows I'm here," he thought to himself. He took the bait and started down the hallway toward the opposite end that was lit.

Heero in his re-built Wing Zero flew toward the colony at amazing speed. Along the way he picked up a few squadrons of mobile suits that were guarding this simple colony. "Such a bad setup. Not enough suits and a poorly trained crew of pilots and officers trying to conduct themselves in a military fashion," Heero mused about the matter.

"Dad," Heero Jr. said, "I've never killed someone before. Do remember, I was up against mobile dolls back on Earth." He had thought about the whole time they were flying toward the colony. His first kill, he knew it was near, for he could feel in deep within. He closed his eyes and let the Zero System guide him to the colony.

"Son, do not worry yourself. I'll make sure that nothing happens to you. As for your first kill," his father started to explain, "it shouldn't be as much murder as you should see it to be protection." Heero tried to explain that there many ways to stop one's enemies. Disarmament was one of the many methods and it was one that the Earth Sphere Unified Alliance opted for, but that only brought chaos.

"So, I should only target their weapon systems them or their main thrusters? Being adrift in space won't help them fight," chibi-Heero said to the gundam pilot.

"Yes, and that's all you should ever have to do. I know you can do it son, I trust your skills," Heero's father said to him. He was surprised that his father was so trustworthy of him. He had never actually seen him fight and he had never trained him for mobile suit combat. He taught himself all of the skills that he knew.

In the meantime, Trowa had found himself cornered on his way toward the command room of the colony. He was in the middle of a hallway surrounded by 4 guards carrying guns. They were ordered to capture him and take him to the Chief of the colony. "Well, at least I'll get to where I was going," he thought to himself. "But, who wants to see me?"

Before they started to go forward, a figure came out of the dark in front of them. He stepped into the light. Trowa immediately recognized him the Chief leader of the colony, Captain James Fenald of the 3rd Space Force for the Barton Foundation. Of course, that was years ago. He knew that Fenald was now a Commander in the Barton's ranks. "I knew it was you all along. I came here for you, you know," Trowa said.

"I know, Triton Bloom," he replied smiling. "Yes, I know who you really are. I knew your parents, young Triton. It was such a shame that we had to run a bombing test so close to your family that day," he continued to say. "Your father was a skilled mechanic and he wanted out of the Barton Foundations reach after he found out about Operation Meteor." The man laughed to himself knowing what he done in his past. "I'm getting old, but I've survived long enough to see that I made a careless miscalculation and didn't kill the entire family," he said. "Oh, and I know about your sister as well. The pretty woman she has become and how protective she is of you."

"Leave her out of this," Trowa demanded in a cold tone of voice. "So now I know what really happened to my family. It was your entire fault. After I heard from Cathy that they died from a bombing test, I looked into it. There shouldn't have been any mobile suits aboard our colony during that time. It was a peaceful colony not yet under the control of the Alliance. So, they had to be sent there for some sort of purpose other than a test," Trowa informed coldly to the murderer of his mother and father. "As I looked further into the records of the Barton Foundation, I saw that you, Captain Fenald, had ordered an attack upon the desert regions aboard colony L-4 at Lagrange point. You called it a mere exercise, authorizing the mission to the pilots under you. They could only follow orders, so they were not to be blamed. The command not to deploy troops from your colony was not followed by you it seems," Trowa said him.

"My dear Triton, it seems you have learned very much," Fenald said. "To bad I must kill you, because I'd love to continue our little chat," he said walking past him. "I'm on a tight schedule, as you can see, and I'm on my way to the earth to oversee the assault on Luxembourg, since my serpents did such a nice job in Moscow," he said laughing like a mad man.

Trowa took the opportunity while the guards were all standing around bored at the conversation in front of him. He spun around kicking the guard to the back right of him, knocking him out cold on the ground. He turned backhanding the one opposite to the guard behind him, then punched him in the stomach. The other two guards aimed their weapons at him. Trowa stood slowly and raised his hands shoulder high. "Well, it looks like we were trying to escape," the Chief Commander said.

"Actually I was trying to kill you," he said bluntly. This angered the man a bit. "To bad, but don't think you're going to get that lu--", he was saying as the colony shook violently, knocking them all off balance into the walls of the dark lit hallway. Trowa jump kicked another guard and took his weapon and shot the last one standing in the right arm, causing him to drop his gun and scream in pain. He now pointed the weapon at his parent's murderer. He stared coldly at him. "An eye for an eye just isn't my style," Trowa said. "Just do as I say," he told him. They traveled down the dark corridor. He took a pair of the handcuffs from a fallen guard and put them on Fenald.

Outside, Heero Jr. destroyed the command center of the colony from the outside as he blasted it with his twin laser cannon. It caused a huge explosion that rocked all the areas around that portion of the colony. His father had taken care of most of the suits that were guarding. Such inexperienced pilots. Heero had no problem not killing them. He simply blew off limbs of the suits or their weapons.

"Dad, I've destroyed the command center as instructed," chibi-Heero said to his father. "Oh, I'm getting a message from Trowa," he then informed. "He said that he has captured the Chief Commander of the colony as he was leaving for Earth," he said.

"Hey, Trowa," Heero said over the com system to him, "the transport is on its way. It should be there any minute now." Heero's re-built Wing Zero Custom was still looking bad after its accident with its twin buster rifle the previous day.

As soon as Heero sent Trowa the message, Sally rounded the corner into the landing bay of the colony. She docked and opened the hatch for entrance to the transport. "Hurry on, we don't have a lot of time," Sally said to Trowa. He floated onboard and went and locked the prisoner into a seat in the back. Trowa traveled back up to the cockpit. Wufei's daughter, Nataku, was now standing in the middle of the hallway entrance that led to the rear storage. She told her mother and father that she would look after their prisoner while they were traveling back.

Sally reversed the transport out of the bay and fired the engines. The transport boosted forward steadily back toward the colony. Heero asked Sally to open the storage hatch at the rear of the vessel. He couldn't fly the Wing Zero home in its condition. He glided the hulk of gundanium into the bay and closed the hatch behind him. Heero sat in his gundam's cockpit with his eyes closed and arms crossed pondering.

"Well, that leaves you out there alone, chibi-Heero," Sally said to him. "So, just make sure no one attacks us on the way back." She sat back in the chair of the cockpit with Wufei and Trowa behind her. They starred in front of them into the sea of starts. Each remembering their past and then retracing their history to the present. No one noticed when Nataku entered the cockpit.

"I think he's secure enough, so I decided to come up here," she said, getting their attention rather abruptly. They all eyed her, before Wufei spoke up, "Good work Nataku." Wufei was smiling because he was proud of his daughter. She was strong, and well taught in martial arts. Even a few times has she dropped him, but he doesn't talk about their training much. Heero Jr. was now flying out ahead of the transport. She eyed his suit and sighed. Wufei noticed her expression and just let it go.

On their way back, a group of taurus suits followed the transport. They attacked from behind. Their barrage of fire hit the back of the transport. Two of the 4 engines went out and started smoking. The quick, back attack caught young Heero off guard. The gundam's huge wings flapped instantly and it spun around with such grace, that it could have been a real bird. The suit flew directly into one of the oncoming taurus' and destroyed it. The wing zero flew right through it. As he flew past the other two, he fired his double laser cannon. It shot directly through the rear of the taurus and through the cockpit. He wings flapped again and he stopped in space, before firing the powerful vernia thrusters in conjunction with the wings to boost right at the last suit. He drew the sabre on his direct course to it, then slammed the sabre through the cockpit of the suit and he came rushing into it. He fired the reverse thrusters to slow himself so he wouldn't damage his suit more flying into the taurus. He powered down the sabre as he flew back from the exploding suit. Firing the vernias again, he regained his lead in front of the transport.

"Are you all right?" he asked them. "We're fine in here," Nataku answered. She was left in the cockpit as the others had drifted back to start questioning their prisoner, and to make sure that he hadn't tried to escape during the attack. "That was great fighting against those mobile suits Heero-san," Nataku mentioned, giggling over the com system to chibi-Heero in his gundam. Heero smiled to himself in his cockpit, but didn't verbally thank her. He continued to lead them back to the space colony.

* * *

Once back aboard the colony, Heero Jr. walked his gundam into a terminal for the technicians to look at and work on. He told them to wait on working on his until they have brought his father's suit up to at least 75% efficiency. He really did a number on his suit firing his twin buster rifle at that huge colony. From the stats that he read, that colony was nearly 12x the size of the Libra battle cruiser. He was amazed that even the full power of the cannon was able to destroy the colony, but it had been done. Now all that remains of the suit is just a bulk of gundanium with a hole in the middle for the pilot.

"I don't know why I took it out today, son," Heero said floating over to his son, after getting his suit into the hangar for its major repairs. "It was in pieces this morning. The wings weren't working, but at 37%. Even the targeting system was only at 73%," he said before smirking. "I'm going to stay out here and help the technicians fix the suit."

"Ok, dad," chibi-Heero said, "I'm going inside with the others." He looked down at Nataku, who was waiting for him at the doorway. Her parents had already escorted their prisoner inside and were taking him up to Relena so they could probe him for more information. He turned and jumped down from the cockpit hatchway and landed near Nataku. They then walked inside together and met up with her parents.

They all came to the elevator and got in. It ascended into the colony's main interior. Once it opened, Heero Jr. and Nataku lead the way down the hall, before hanging a left to come upon the door to the command room. The door to the command room hissed open to reveal Preventor officers scurrying about doing their tasks. Relena stood starring out into the dark, vastness of space. She stood their quietly; and oblivious of the surroundings presently behind her save for the distant, deep space ahead. Only one could wonder so much about the history of the colonies and the wars that they brought. Countless lives lost for such a pathetic dictatorship. Even the saddening act of a sibling to a martyr of peace brought the death of so many; and for what? Peace, of course; they all said. Relena could not think exactly how it was going to bring peace, but somehow they all thought it could. She continued her daze into the LaGrange Sea of Death. Absently she could see the physical evidence of the pasts dreaded history slowly float weightlessly through the aged graveyard that has claimed so many. Relena snapped out of the gaze as the remnants of an old Leo's camera brightly spun and reflected the sun's light into her eyes.

Wufei, accompanied by his daughter, Heero Jr., and his wife, along with their captive, walked toward Relena as she stood near the window. The reflection of the group gave Relena a hint of their presence, so she turned around to greet them.

"Wufei," she said, " I see all of you have returned from your successful mission." She looked around for Heero. "Where is your father?" she asked her son. "Father is helping the technicians repair his suit. He only had them do a minor repair on it after he almost destroyed it," chibi-Heero replied to his mother. Relena nodded in acknowledgement of his answer. She was getting afraid. Heero was risking his life and pushing himself way too hard lately.

Wufei forward, "We have brought back their chief commander of their colony." He turned around revealing Fenald behind them, still bound in handcuffs. Nataku was standing near Heero Jr. She was quite impressed at how he was so much like his father, yet much more friendly. She sighed as she admired him for his strength and willingness to help. Heero Jr. knew she was starring at him, but he didn't mind at all, but only stood smiling.

Fenald was an officer of the Baron Foundation and so he carries a few things in his belt. With his hands behind him cuffed, he slowly slipped the key out and unlocked himself. He held the cuffs in place though, not to startle anyone. Trowa had just entered the room and walked toward the crowd of people. He had the important documents of the most current events of the Peacemillion that just came in that Relena and the others needed to see. When he walked past Fenald, the Barton Officer dropped his cuffs and grabbed Trowa's gun from his left side, while pushing Trowa ahead, stumbling, into Relena. She screamed and then everyone noticed that he was ready to shoot Trowa.

"Well, again I have you at the end of the barrel of a gun, Triton," Fenald said to him. Trowa had stood up again and turned around. They were all standing fairly close. Heero Jr. was to Fenald's right side, while Trowa, Relena, and Nataku were right in front of him. Wufei and Sally were standing off to his far left. "I think it's time for you to die," he said smiling, before starting to laugh slightly. Right as he was pulling the trigger, Nataku pushed Trowa out of the way. Chibi-Heero's eyes went wide and leapt into the air. A loud shot was heard. Everyone in the room starred at the scene. Some were not yet aware of exactly was had been going on. Heero lay on the ground bleeding. "Heero!" Nataku screamed. He was shot in the right collarbone and it was bleeding everywhere on the floor.

"Someone get security!" a preventor officer yelled near the far back door of the dark-lit room. _Damn!_ Fenald mentally said to himself as he looked back. He turned back to his current situation quickly to notice Nataku spinning at him. She had jumped up and spun, kicking the gun right out Fenald's hand. The gun flew across the room before hitting the floor, luckily not going off. Before he could get a hold on the situation, she pulled off a leg sweep that toppled the old man. He pulled his head up slowly, in pain, to notice her again. She was flipping in the air with her legs bent under her with rage written across her face. She came landing down with her right knee across his neck. Then she threw a fast right cross into his face, breaking his nose. Blood splattered the floor to her right. Satisfied with her work, she jumped up off of him and took a breath of relief. Blood was pouring from the old man's nose and he sat choking on the ground in immense pain.

Wufei stood their motionless for second. "God damn," was all he could say. Inside he was proud of his daughter. He then had a wicked smile cross his face. He thought of how he raised such a strong daughter. Sally spoke up, "Guards, get this man down to the med. lab for medical attention," she commanded. "Make sure you check his clothing this time and keep a eye on him before locking him up in a cell." Trowa grabbed the collar of the man's shirt and was dragging him toward the door. As he got there, he slammed the old heap against the door on the ground. "That served you right," Trowa said, before waiting for security.

Nataku was at Heero's side again. She had a tear coming down her face. "You jumped in front of the bullet to save me," she said. Heero coughed a little and then winced from the pain in his shoulder, where his left arm was pressed hard against his wound. He opened his eyes and looked at her and barely managed a smile. She smiled at him too. He reached up his right arm, painfully, and whipped her tear away. "Don't cry," he said, "I'm alright." His arm fell again, because he couldn't hold it up. The pain was over-whelming his arm now. Doctors and guards then flooded the room. They came to Heero's first to aid him. Relena had gone running down to the hangar to get Heero and tell him the news. She noticed that Nataku would stay with him.

* * *

In the morning, Heero awoke in a hospital room. His mother was asleep in the chair next to him and Nataku had fallen asleep on the couch near the door. The doctors did their best. They had to surgically remove the bullet from his shoulder and then try to place the fractured bone back into place before wrapping his upper-right arm and shoulder in bandages. They then gave him a large dosage of painkillers and they knocked him out. Nataku stirred awake and saw that he was awake as well. She yawned, then got up and went to his side.

"You're awake," she said looking at him. He looked deeply at her smiling. Her eyes were glittering. "I awoke early this morning when my mother was still awake and she told me what you did," he said to her. "I see that martial arts has paid off for you." He remembered back to the days where he would spend time at the Preventor's agency when his father would have work there. He and Nataku had become friends and lately they were getting really close. She had gotten worried when she found out he ran away.

"As soon as I get to see you again, you go off and get hurt," she said to him. He only smiled again, just glad to have her presence. She understood his silence, like his father's, but he was more open with his feelings. Nataku pulled up a chair and sat in it close to him. She laid her head down in his right hand and fell asleep again.

Later that day, everyone met in the command room again. They cleaned up the mess and took better care of making sure prisoners from the colony weren't armed. Trowa, Heero, Wufei, Sally, Relena, and Zechs had gone over the information about the Peacemillion. The attack on Moscow was launched from the colony, but only because the Peacemillion sneaked up to the Earth from the other side of the most populated colonies. Solo and Wind had set off toward Earth a day ago before Trowa, Heero, and Heero's son had regained control of the Barton Foundation's colony. At noon Max Barton was to have a speech toward the earth and the Preventors aboard this colony. Well, noon came very fast that day.

All of earth and space watched on as yet another dictator gave a broadband speech. "This is Max Barton. Last living relative of the true Barton family that began this glorious foundation many decades ago," he started. "I have now targeted Luxembourg with the mega-beam cannon aboard this space cruiser. If you ask what it is that I want, well, it's simply control of the Earth," he said to public. "The Preventor's, along with the Earth Sphere Unified Alliance have kept people from migrating toward Earth who lived in the colonies. All they wanted was for everyone on earth to come to the colonies and for the colonies to be happy. But how can they be happy when all many of them wanted was to come to the Earth?!" he exclaimed. "Our Foundation was created to create a peaceful colony under which we could control. We wanted something where we could say 'We have space superiority here' and everyone would listen… but it went further than that. My father wanted more. Once he had gained that, he wanted to control the Earth. He loved the dream of controlling earth so much that he hated it," the old Barton bellowed out. "So, he created Operation Meteor. He thought, 'If they don't want people from the colonies to come to Earth, let alone get into the earth's government; then I'll have to flatten Earth and start anew with the citizens in my colony'," he told them. He then finished, "My father, Dekim Barton, was a smart and powerful man. I am now going to fulfil his dream in life by taking over the earth by destroying each city one-by-one using this battle station!"

Nataku and Heero watched the broadcast from the TV in his room while their parents and the others watched from the control room. Heero got Nataku to help him get up and then he hurried as fast as he could to an elevator. She didn't know what was going on, but just followed close behind him.

The door to the command hissed open fast as Heero Jr. darted in and hurriedly found a computer terminal he could use. His parents noticed his fast intrusion and slowly walked over to him. He was typing as fast as he could with one good hand and a crippled arm that had the other. He muttered, "I've got to stop him, and I know how." He brought a remote targeting system that was located in Berlin, Germany. He had it set to track a projectile launch from a military base in New Edwards, California, in the U.S.A. He had cracked the security system on the guidance system and remote link to the base.

"Son, what are you doing?" Heero asked. He noticed that he was quite busy and took in the information before him. "What?! A Mk. 82 warhead!" Heero yelled out. The old Barton was just announced he was about to fire the mega beam cannon on Luxembourg. "No you don't!" chibi-Heero said as he pressed the enter button. The screen flashed green with a biohazard warning sign saying 'Warhead Launched - All Systems: Go'. People passing near the base that day were extremely startled as the base opened up and a huge missile rocketed out into the air at tremendous speed. Immediately the Berlin radar picked up the missile and was guiding it to its target: the Peacemillion.

As warhead approached, the old Barton caught onto his plan. The mega cannon from the Peacemillion was fired! The intense blue beam shot down through the atmosphere stirring clouds and life around. The blast intensified into a huge white arc of lighting as it came crashing down upon the capital of the world. "It has begun!" yelled the Barton from his broadcast. Right then, the communication cut off.

* * *

Luxembourg now had a huge crater in the center of the huge city. People were going crazy and things were a huge mess. Quatre, his wife, and the remaining members of the Maganac Corps watched the blasphemy on the television from the Luxembourg news. He already had them completing his custom-built serpent mobile suit. "I'm going to go after the troops coming from the north!" Quatre said to his wife. "Someone has to and I can't get a hold of any of the other pilots." Dorothy let him go. She knew he would take care of himself. She knew he could sense his presence was needed.

* * *

"Those damn Preventors! Firing a nuclear warhead at the Peacemillion! I never would have thought a day that I'd see it happen!" he ranted on as he hurried to his escape ship. It was large transport inside of the extremely large Peacemillion battle cruiser. The ship's engines fired and it slowly was launching out of the port. "They'll pay for this," he said as he stood before a massive machine before him. "No one would expect such a massive suit, but I pressed it on despite my fathers jabbering about it being a waste!" he continued, smiling at his massive hulk of what he called a mobile armor.

* * *

Everyone watched as the missile escaped Earth's atmosphere in one piece. They saw a close-up of the Peacemillion. "No!!!" Heero Jr. screamed. "He can't get away!" he said as they saw his transport in the lower portion of the screen going downward toward earth below the equator. "Sir, only 12 more seconds before impact," said a officer from the preventor agency to Heero Jr. He nodded. They all watched as the little flashing ball of light slammed into the direct from the battle cruiser. Immediately different sides of the Peacemillion were glowing bright yellow, but only before exploding into balls of fire. Then the entire cruiser took a shattering explosion that create millions of flashing particles of the ship that were slung through space and toward earth in the huge shockwave aftermath.

"He got away," each person said starring at the screen. Heero looked at his son, "A nuclear warhead." Heero's glare had death on it and he couldn't help but recall history about nukes. He never lived in a time where they were used, but he knew he would never sink that low. "I knew it would work, father, that's why I used it," Jr. replied. "I was taught to use what I knew that would work to stop my targets. You taught me that." Heero only nodded as his eyes widened a little from their narrow death glare. His son was right, he was taught to do what worked and yet, worked the fastest and most efficient. Though nuclear weapons were still uncalled for. Heero Jr. turned to Nataku, she didn't have a say on the matter, but remained close to him.

"Did you object to me using the nuke?" he asked her. He searched her eyes to find the answer, but she was always the same. He liked that about her. She was very strong and never let any situation get to her.

"It did protect us from any other harms that Barton could have pulled off with that battle cruiser," she replied, looking up at him. He only smiled like he always did at her.

"I would do anything," he said, coming closer to her, "to protect the people that I love." He bent his head down and gave her a sound kiss in the lips. She was quite shocked at what he did, but she kissed him back. Everyone around noticed them. Wufei didn't mind Heero's son at all because he was strong and from a family that Wufei trusted, unlike the Maxwell's. Wufei wouldn't have had a Maxwell come near his daughter without them being under the edge of a machete first.

Everyone settled in for the night and waited the morning to come to see how they could handle this new tragedy. Two of the main bases of operations for the Earth were destroyed today, but the Barton's colony was captured. They found this to be no good, except for that lack of evidence of major construction. They wanted to see what he had been building and new he would unveil it quite soon enough.

Chapter 6: Sortie on Earth


	6. Sortie On Earth

Gundam Wing: _Ended Waltz_

By: Qasur Zephlar Exlarr

Chapter 6: Sortie on Earth

The Barton's escaped transport came flying through space as it traveled lower in space below the equator. It then proceeded to enter Earth's atmosphere. The large transport flew through the burning atmosphere, rather easily for something as large as that size. Flames were erupting around the hull of the vessel as it came through the pressurized, invisible barrier. The evil, old man already had plans to take over the Antarctica base if the rebuilt Peacemillion were to be destroyed. It just happened that it was, which still angered him greatly. Keeping it a secret for so long was a gift he was glad of. More importantly was that he was surprised that the beam cannon actually worked, because they had never even fired a test shot.

The cruiser hurled through the atmospheric clouds above the blue earth. Below them they could see flashes of light and hear thunder. As they continued to descend, their weather conditions changed quite a bit. They went from a darkening day into a dreaded midnight lit storm that was raging around them now. From above, it was so peaceful that one could fall asleep to the simple rumble and faint pounds. Now it was all around them. They were nearing the country of Chili, deep down south in South American continent.

"We're getting closer and closer comrades," Max stated to his fellow legions of his army. "I have dreamed of this day coming for such a long time. Ever since my father tried to carry out the plans when I was just a little boy." He laughed a little at his part, before taking a swig from his bottle of vodka. "To bad I had to loose my dear beam cannon vessel, but I had a feeling that something would happen, but dreaded would I have ever thought of the day they would use nuclear warhead!" he continued to muse, in his slightly intoxicated stage. Ever since he left, he popped the top on his prize bottle he planned to save after taking the capital. He was just so eager to enjoy the fruits of victory, because he was so close. "Being on top of the world, what fun," he said, talking to himself. The others around the Barton just cheered him onto his own victory while savoring their own special punch.

After an enjoying ride through the earth's atmosphere, the next-in-line commander, presently taking Fenald's old position, James Harret, informed Mr. Barton that they were approaching the Antarctica Base shortly. They already knew there were mobile suits guarding this base and the Australia base like hawks on their prey. "I'll get the mobile suit pilots ready, Sir," Commander Harret said to him. He turned to walk away, before the old man grabbed his arm. "No," he said to his commander, "that won't be necessary. I'll take care of this myself!" He stood, with little help from the commander, whom he was leaning on. "They need to understand what I have in store for them! I can't just hide it, you know," he said smiling.

"Uh, yes Sir," he replied. James Harret turned around and called to the nearest officer. "Tell the technicians to ready the 'The Black Death'!" The man immediately took off through the door and down to the mobile suit bay. The Barton enjoyed the name of his beast. He liked to know that wherever he went, his mobile armor would plague those who went against him. "Sir, I wish you much luck and I hope that you don't take a bit of damage," he said to him. Max looked at him, "Why would I take any damage?" The commander looked like he wanted to hide, but he remained steady on his feet. "I meant nothing of it, Sir," he said taking a little bow. The Barton just looked him over with a grin face, then slowly drudged away as he traveled toward the exit of the room. The commander hurried after him to make sure that he didn't fall down on his way. He wasn't quite drunk, but well enough had his lot of alcohol for the day.

Down in the mobile suit bay, the technicians got right to work powering up the massive mobile armor. That's what Max Barton had called it when he built it. His father had disapproved of him building such a large mobile-suit-type mecha with so much armor on it. Max tried to explain to his father that the sheer size and power of it was enough to destroy measly mobile suits made of gundanium alloy. Since he didn't want to make it harder to build than it was, he just used most of his father's precious neo-titanium alloy to build the mobile armor.

He had built the huge mecha in the shape of the shenlong dragon of the Chinese culture. It had a long, continuous tail with a small pair of hands and feet. The mouth of the dragon was filled with heated gundanium teeth. When the mouth fully opened, it revealed small barrel that was the beginning of the huge particle cannon. They took the knowledge of what technology they had left on the buster rifle that Doctor J had created and used it to create a more scaled up version for his new monster. The mobile armor was colored with blood red with black lining and trimming. The eyes were light blue that glowed in the darkness of despair. Each of the claws on the hands and feet were made with heated gundanium, as the teeth. When they glow red, it's a danger. No suit could survive a swipe or directly grip of the claws, or even the teeth. 

Despite the mecha's large size, it was incredibly maneuverable. It packed quite a punch with its standard close-combat weaponry alone. The nostrils of the suit contained two simple beam vulcans. The tail of the dragon was sharpened into a blade, made of gundanium. The tail had a special thruster system built into it so that the pilot could use it as an offensive weapon easier than relying on the large motor control system built into the dragon. The lower belly of the dragon, and along it's top, housed huge, built in vernia rocket boosters. Many control nozzles were built into the recesses of the folds. A large generator was housed toward the middle of the suit, where the arms and legs were attached. To make his monster more destructive, he built a small beam sabre into the end of the tail that would extend quite a length outward for attacking. Then, certain scales from the tips of the joints of the neck and tail would loosen and become alive, as they would generate a massive energy shielding system.

Many people fancied this large 'mobile suit' as he often called it. It was a monster, and they all knew it. The technicians who helped him build it didn't believe that it would truly be as powerful as it turned out. Many of them would become the top engineers and heads of countries once the world takeover was complete because they kept with his idea of it being grand. "Delusions of Grandeur" his father would tell him when he took his precious time to travel deep into the colony to exhibit himself to the construction of the metalloid sarcophagus his son was created.

Max climbed up to the middle body that controlled it all. He had the pilot's housing built there. Technicians were still running around checking every little detail to make sure nothing was wrong with it. He walked over to the open hatch and slowly climbed down into the belly of the beast. "All right, you can all leave now. I'll take it from here," he said to men outside. Each of them nodded before padding away to safety. The hatched hissed as it came down to seal him inside. He flipped a few switches and different fields of screens that created one, big, panoramic viewing screen started to all come alive with vivid images of video from the outside. "Well, I guess it's time," he said to himself. He turned on the com system, "Open the main bay door." The officer on the other side of the transmission completed the request and soon the huge bay door began to creak open slowly.

The old Barton continued to push buttons, flip switches, and input data into the computer controls at his right. One of the panels of the huge screen before him popped up an image of the system analysis as it ran through checking each system for their performance ratings. Each entry reached 100% and turned green. He pressed enter and the panel turned back to live video feed. "I'm heading out," he said as the large transport slowed in the air as it prepared for its departure. The Black Death started to rise as the vernia engine boosters were fired. The transport momentarily lifted with the mobile armor do to the large weight it no longer had to bear. Once it was free from the floor of the transport, Max Barton fired all the forward boosters at once. Each of the boosters along the main body and the ones hidden inside of the neck and tail segments all popped open and fired a bluish blast as the mobile armor darted out of the bay.

"My god! Such a heavy thing flies through the air as if it was a piece of paper being blown around by the wind!" said one of the Barton Foundation officers as they watched it fly out ahead of the transport. It moved with such as grace, with each segment of the mecha waving as if it were swimming through water, but it was air-borne. "Glory be to thee, it works!" Max yelled over the com system. Then you could hear him laugh loudly.

"An evil mad man with his demented tool of death, and he's laughing," said the newly appointed commander. He continued to watch the leader of their foundation as he flew on toward the Antarctica base directly ahead of them. Many of their bases mobile suits were already flying toward them for anticipation of a battle. How could the base's radar not detect two huge objects flying towards it?

Among the compilation of suits were many Aires units and Taurus'. Each of the captains of the squads was distinguished enough to have been given a rare Serpent unit. Although this was a large force, 53 units weren't enough to even believed to cause any massive damage, beyond standard wear and tear of battle to the mobile armor.

"Holy shit! Look at the size of that thing!" one of the pilots said to his fellow camaraderie pilots. They all stared in amazement at it. The Black Death continued to fly through the air in a wave-like motion from side to side in front of the pilot's screens. "Ready for attack," said the captain of a squadron. "Team One, attack to the left and come around to its back," he continued on. As the orders were given, 20 Aires suits fired their boosters and flew off toward the left of the large group. "All right, now the Serpents will stay low and attack from the underneath, we'll form Team Two, while Team Three, the Taurus', will go into a strait on battle," said the commander in charge. "Align yourself into groups, which are 3 suits. Each group will attack the target, but one group at a time," he said to them all. "Keep a random attack from each side so we can confuse the pilot or pilots of this monstrous object. If two suits of the group are destroyed, the remaining suit will peel off his attack and fly off to regroup with other diminished groups. We'll keep a steady attack on it. It shouldn't be too hard, guys," the commander said, trying to reassure them. "It's huge, bulky, and looks quite slow; it shouldn't be a problem. Best of luck to you all!" the commander bowed his head to himself, before moving his right hand to his head, then lowering it to chest as he moved it from his left to his right in the shape of a cross. "God help us if this goes wrong," he muttered under his breath, making sure no other pilot heard his musings.

"Such fools, moving in formations trying to attack me… just wait you stupid fools!" Max Barton said. He immediately used his feet to start the main boosters again and shoot the suit forward flying straight at the oncoming Taurus suits. He laughed all the way as the huge monster he created was extremely agile and maneuverable.

"Damn, watch out, it's coming right for us!" a pilot yelled out as he barely dodged the super-fast mobile armor. The red dragon mobile armor destroyed nearly ten of the mobile suits with its suicide run into the oncoming mob. "It's incredibly fast!" another yelled. "Change of plans! Team one, attack from behind Team Two and the Serpents will continue their low assault from the ice surface," their commander yelled. He knew that they wouldn't be able to defeat such a large enemy, especially if it was far more maneuverable than they were. "Yes sir," many of them replied as they reformed and continued their assault.

"Stupid fools!" Max yelled, as he spun his dragon around and started firing his nose-mounted vulcans. The laser blasts ripped through many Taurus suits, causing them to explode with a fury of fire. The other pilots hurled their suits off to the left and right to shake the wake of fire. A few groups of suits flew in and shot at the large suit. Many of the first shots had direct hits, but the armor was so powerful that they didn't even manage to scratch the paint job.

Another wave of suits flew in over the top of the mecha firing down upon the middle of it. Most of the Aires were armed with chain machine guns, while the Taurus suits had beam rifles. The serpents were all armed with dual gatling guns and their shoulder-mounted 8-missile packs. The serpents were giving a low assault to the mecha as it flew around above them. The dragon destroyed more of the old OZ and Alliance suits suit. Some serpents popped open their shoulder packs and started to fire volleys of missiles toward the mecha. Many hit the tail and neck segments, exploding, but only to reveal black marks where the explosions went off, but didn't break the armor.

"This is wasting my time, and the suits are a bit harder to keep up with, so," he entered a few things into the computer console on the right arm rest, "we'll just destroy them all at once." He finished and pressed the enter button. A multiple targeting display came up in one of the panels. It was calculating the arcs and angles of trajectories for the 31 remaining mobile suits. "Heh, here we go," he said as he pressed the fire buttons on the mobile suit's joystick controllers. Panels on two of the tail units and on two of the neck units slid open and nearly a hundred mini-missiles came rocketing out of it to the sides of the suit. They each curved and flew off to their specified target. They were fired in pairs for the most damage.

"Sir, a volley of missiles! We're all gon—" he was saying as two missiles slammed into his suit, one from the front and the other from the rear. It destroyed the suit easily. It was a mess all around the mobile armor. It was like a mess of flies buzzing around a dead animal on the road as the suits were flying in all directions trying to escape their death trap. Many of the missiles were easily meeting their scared targets and annihilating them. The Barton even individually killed many pilots that he was able to with the claws of his dragon.

He flew up fast to the commander's serpent on the ground and the head of his suit came crashing down on each side of his serpent, sealing the suit in the mouth of the dragon. The commander was screaming over the com. "You all have been plagued!" Max Barton said before clamping the mouth of the suit shut, melting and crunching the suit in the red-hot toothed mouth the dragon. The suit eventually exploded, not damaging the mobile armor. Max took off from the surface of the ice to see that his job was completed. Every single mobile suit was easily destroyed and the path to the base was cleared.

In the distance the Commander of the Antarctica Base could see the large, red dragon that the commander of the mobile suit force had pointed out to him as the attacker. He got the base on Red Alert status as they prepared to evacuate the base. It was too late for them, though, although the commander didn't know that. The old Barton was flying straight at the base, with the mouth of the dragon fully opened, and the tip of the barrel in the back of it's mouth glowing yellow.

"Sir, we must get going," the Commander said to the pilot, who had the transport now lifted into the air. They had a suit about the size of Barton's, but theirs was not quite that large. They had stored it away at the base with a quick getaway purpose for this occasion. "I… don't think we're gonna make it…" the commander said. He turned to look at the video screen displaying the rear of them. The Black Death just roared over the top of the base's largest radio control tower, before launching it's waiting particle beam cannon at the transport. "AHHHH!!!" people were yelling on board as the cannon's blast directly hit the rear of the transport, melting through the engine core, causing it to explode and start a chain reaction. Between the engine's meltdown and reactor explosion and the particle cannon that shot directly though the transport, everyone on board had died and the transport exploded in a fury of lovely fireworks, at least to the Barton.

Small chunks of the large transport burned as they well from the sky onto the icy planes of the Antarctic, where they melted the ice and led them to a frozen chilled, water grave. Barton took his mobile armor and maneuvered it around waving in the air as it had been flying before, and landed upon the large powered concrete runway. The Barton Foundation's transport was only a few minutes away from landing and taking the base. He knew they must have all evacuated, for they wouldn't leave a soldier to die on the ice continent. Max Barton sat laughing to himself in his mobile suit, taking a swig of vodka now and then from his flash that he carried. "Mission Completed," he said last before closing his eyes and envisioning his future to come.

In mere hours, the Barton Foundation had cleared out the Antarctic base and found no people remaining there. None of the mobile suits were stored aboard the transport that tried to escape, so that left them quite a few extras to use for their own purposes. They establish 12-hour guard routine for the mobile suit pilots and for around the base. The food and all of their supplies are gathered to see how they can support themselves upon this ice rock. They realized that by now someone has heard of their attack on this base.

"I doubt their Commander was stupid enough to not ask for help in such a desperate situation," Max said to his highest ranked officers. "Do we still control anyone from the conglomerate?" He looked around at his officers. None of them spoke up, but looked around at each to see if anyone knew the answer. "Well, this helps. I was hoping we could get them to kidnap one Relena Darlian, again, because I know they would come after her," he finished.

"Sir, what are we going to do now that we have this base here on earth? It's going to be harder to win over the Earth now that we have lost the Peacemillion. We'll have to rely on your mobile armor to scare people," said Commander Harret. He was decisive and quick to think of a plan, but he was out of options in the ice. He truly needed the right equipment, but he would have to suffice. "Oh, they will be scared. When they here that my mobile armor took out about 50 mobile suits in minutes and then completely destroyed a transport, oh, they'll be afraid," he said, "if not more afraid realizing that we might have even more goodies."

"Well, this operation is coming to a close. It's getting late my friends. Thanks for all of your help and support, but it's time for my rest. It's going to be a busy day tomorrow," he said to them all before exiting the radar tower, which has become their command room. The rest of the men each left room and headed to their assigned quarters for the evening.

* * *

Presently, the Preventor's were packing things up aboard the space colony they were using and planning to move back to the Earth. There was no use to remain in space since the enemy returned to Earth, and as they found out, took for himself the Antarctica Base. "Oh, brother, how that base carries memories," Relena said while pushing her brother, Milliardo, in his wheelchair down the hallway to the waiting transport. "Yes, it does," he replied to her smiling. "If I'm correct, it is where you first learned that I was your brother and it was also where I we both truly found out that Heero was still alive in person," he continued to tell her. She nodded her head, "yes, brother."

"I hope Wind is doing fine. He and Solo left almost two days ago to go down to Earth. I haven't heard anything from him since then," she said. "I trust my son enough to know that he'll be alive. He's almost like me when it comes to communicating, he's very shy," he told her, turning his head to look back at her.

They reached the entryway leading into the bay. "It's time to leave then, brother, to head back to the Earth," Relena said. She helped him out of his wheelchair and handed him his crutches. He didn't want to act too handicapped in front of everyone. He still carried a lot of pride about being as strong as the gundam pilots are, so he always chose to show it as little as possible.

Everyone was now aboard the transport. They decided to load the gundams aboard the transport as well, instead of have them guide them down as protection. They had their ace pilots out guarding the transports and the gundam pilots themselves kept alert to all security precautions. The technicians, with Heero's help, managed to repair a good deal of his gundam over the last two days. They replaced just about all the armor and were currently in the process of re-creating the wing system. Most of it had completed melted away. Their small supply of gundanium was diminished now, so they were left using neo-titanium. That was until Heero Jr. spoke up and said that they could continue to repair his suit at the New Edwards Base in California where he said Solo and him still had a supply of Neo-Gundanium alloy left. His father said that would be good, and it also gave them a base that wasn't in a large city of importance to work from.

During the flight toward Earth, Heero Jr. sent an electronic message to Solo's gundam to tell him that they were going to be at the New Edwards Base for the operations now while they repaired his father's gundam. Heero knew he was going to make Solo a bit happy because, when he would return, he would be able to see Aria again. Heero Jr. was sitting near the window starring out into space realizing that he would be returning to earth. He never realized how much he would miss it. He now understood why so many of the people who grew up in space were amazed at it. It was beautiful, nothing that could be mimicked in space by any standard. Even the best colonies that looked like Earth weren't earth, just mimicking relics of over-crowded cities with parks of grass. It was more than just the grass and the trees and the air… it was the overall environment. Weather that changed constantly, pollutants in the air, large lakes that had over-grown forests. Desert areas that stretched as far as the eye could see. Extremely overcrowded cities that were the darkest of hell, even during the heaven's brightest daylight.

Nataku crept up on the younger Heero sitting on the floor. She came up behind him and wrapped her arms around him and sat there hugging him from the back. Heero didn't expect it, but he didn't turn to see her. He knew it was she, and was just glad she was there with him. He could feel her warmth from her hug and felt rather good and he sat there. He smiled and closed his eyes remembering the first moments that he and Nataku had admitted they loved each other. It was quite like this day…

__

…Heero had been sitting near a window, on the floor, in a secluded Preventor's office room with the lights off watching the snow come down heavily. Nataku came up silently behind him and playfully hugged him. Heero and Nataku were good friends and spent a lot of time together when their parents were busy at work during the day. They had lots in common. Heero had taken martial arts as well, for one thing. Heero turned his head around at looked at her after what she had done, and he saw it then. The desire in her eyes had shown brightly to him. They were sparkling greatly with love that he thought he had seen sometimes from her, especially when she thought he wasn't looking at her. Nataku saw the same thing radiate from Heero's eyes as they looked at each other intensely. Heero smiled at her, and then slowly moved his head in closer and gave her a kiss. She wasn't expecting it, but willingly didn't resist it either. She slid her lips apart to let his tongue delve inside of her mouth. When they withdrew from each other Nataku just starred at him for a minute, before smiling. Heero smiled too, before turning his head back around. Nataku continued to hug him, but tighter now, with more affection and she rested her head on his left shoulder as she too watched the snow slowly fall from the sky. "I love you," she whispered into his left ear. Heero's eyes widened a bit, but rather realized it. "I love you too," he said back to her, taking his right hand and wrapping it around her hands that were hugging him. They stayed that for awhile, not even realizing when they had both fallen asleep. Later that night, Sally found them sleeping against each other in the dark office. She stopped and looked at the couple sleeping there restfully. She didn't want to disturb them, so she let them sleep…

…Heero came back to reality as Nataku laid her head on his left shoulder, and then whispered "I love you" into his ear. He tried to reach for her hugging hands again, but forgot about his right arm and winced in the pain he brought upon himself. Heero's right arm and shoulder were still heavily bandaged and he rarely wore his arm sling, which angered his mother. "Baka," she whispered playfully into his left ear before closing her eyes and staying there. Heero just sat there smiling until they both fell asleep against each other again.

* * *

During the night after the Antarctica takeover, Solo and Wind arrived safely in the Arabian Desert. The Maganac's had given them the proper coordinates for their hidden, underground military base that resided after the one-year war in UC 195. Quatre didn't that they were coming there to help him. Abdul's son, Ali, didn't tell him. Ali wanted to surprise him, he supposed. Eleven years after the New Year's Eve crisis with the Barton Foundation, Abdul passed away in his sleep. He had a son that was growing up away from the desert. Abdul wanted his son to be educated and not tied into the war that he was trying to help Quatre with. At that time, his son was nearly 7-years old. Now, Ali is 24 and he came back to the desert to take his father's place, even after all of the protesting that his father gave him before he died.

Solo and Wind found Quatre in his old study with a few of the Maganac's that were still helping him. Only 9 of the original 40 members were alive and they readily helped. Fourteen of the members had sons who readily came in their father's places to give their assistance to the cause. The two young gundam pilots entered the study with silence and came upon Quatre, who was turned around with his back facing them placing the piano. He was playing a melancholy song, as he always did during times of depression or war.

"Mr. Winner, it's good to see you again," Solo spoke up, getting the man's attention. He turned around smiling as he recognized the voice. "Solo!" he stood and walked to them both. He sent a rather awkward look to Wind, for he had never seen him before, but Wind's features gave Quatre a best bet at his mother and father. "Wind, I presume?" he asked him. "Why yes, that's me," he said, shaking Quatre's hand. "You must be another of the famous gundam pilots?" he asked. "Well, not famous," Quatre said, "but yes, I was the pilot of the Sandrock gundam."

The pilots all continued to converse about the past and the present. They started to drift into the situation that occurred in Luxembourg and Moscow. Quatre was most displeased about Luxembourg. He said they nearly wiped out the entire city. Only about a 5-mile radius on the outskirts of the city was still intact from the mighty blast. The rest of the city is a smoldering, hundred-foot deep crater. Quatre said that he had his friends at their underground base help him create a personalized mobile suit. He took one of the recovered Serpent mobile suits and completely removed the entire armor and began to rebuild it from the ground up. He added back most of the chest armor and little of the leg armor. In place of the shoulder- mounted missiles, he places two beam sabres in charging devices. They took up nearly no space at all, and were lightweight. He upgraded the booster pack with an older test model the Maganac's had created for the never-tested space version of Sandrock. As most knew, Sandrock was refitted for space combat aboard the Peacemillion after he went to space. He never had time to refit it before his launch back to help the gundam pilots ward off the White Fang organization. He had an old pair of his heat shortels to use for the main weapons on his suit. They painted the newly dubbed "Sand Serpent" a bluish-green color to help satisfy Quatre's taste for blue and to help give it a sea color to satisfy the name of the mobile suit. The green, also, when sighted from above it glowed a rather light green that almost resembled a light brush. This all to help Master Quatre's suit to be well hidden with camouflage.

"Well, we must get some sleep. We'll begin our assault in the morning," Quatre said to younger pilots. They nodded and waited for someone to escort them to their sleeping areas. Quatre had told them that the suits that attacked Moscow were spotted in a makeshift base about 150 to 200 miles north of Luxembourg. He guessed they would lay ruin to the rest of the city, if it weren't destroyed enough. Wind and Solo were assigned different quarters to sleep in, while Quatre had his master room still from the old days.

Morning came awfully fast for Wind. He had still not truly experienced real combat and had only flown in a through a few battles and did training with missile Leo's against asteroid fields, so he was nervous about the days operation. He went to check on Solo, only to find him sprawled out in his bed, with the sheets and cover twisted around him and he was snoring. His braid was lying across his neck, going down his bare chest as he continued his deep sleep. Wind smirked at the site; but then again, Solo was very open about everything and had the same happy-go-lucky attitude that he saw from Duo, his father.

Quatre had awaken around five that morning to prepare for their launch. Wind had awoken at nearly seven thirty and Solo was still snoozing in bed. They were going to leave by eight, so Quatre had a servant go and 'awaken' Duo's son from his dream and get him ready to leave. Solo ate a rather rushed breakfast. He hurried on a pilot's suit and ran after Wind and Quatre who became very well aquatinted with each other as they talked just about all morning about everything. Each of the pilots climbed into their suits and powered them up for combat. Quatre had his technicians run a maintenance check on the two new mobile suits and replenished what they were missing in fuel and ammunition.

"Ali, we'll be back by this evening, I hope," Quatre told the new Maganac commander. He waved them off from the floor with the other present Maganacs behind him. "Good luck!" he said as the mobile suits walked toward the base's exit. The ground was shaking outside and then slowly a platform from the sand rose up in an arc. It opened, revealing the three mobile suits from beneath it as they walked out onto the sand of the desert.

* * *

The Serpent Squadron from the Barton Foundation had slowly taken their camp apart. Many of the pilots were still groggy from just waking up. A few were inside their suits running a quick maintenance check before their time to leave. Others were scattered on the ground finishing up breakfast or just talking with each other. It was nearly ten o'clock and that was their mission time to start. "Hey, we need to get going. ETA for Luxembourg is 1 hour 15 minutes," their commander said over a speaker from his mobile suit. "That will only leave us a window of 1 hour and 45 minutes to complete the mission. Remember, we're looking for an underground base," he continued to say. All the men got into their suits and they started to walk away toward the city.

* * *

The remaining citizens of Luxembourg that gathered near large buildings to take refuge were still in shock. Supply ships came to help them recover from the tragedy. One supply ship was landing, as 3 missile came slamming into its port side, blowing the ship up in the air. Many people starting screaming and running like mad people around scarred to death. The Serpents had barely made it to the city on schedule.

"Take out the remaining supply ship, we don't want these witnesses to get too involved, more than they have too," the commander said before closing his missile pod shoulder launchers. He fired his boosters and flew off toward the crater. He and many of the men with him were in search of an underground base that was rumored to be under Luxembourg, the secondary capital of the world. The serpents were laying waste to the rest of the city. Few Serpents where flying down into the crater searching for any signs of the base they were told about. After an hour, the suits gathered to leave.

"We'll have to go back and tell them we couldn't find anything, " the commander said. The Serpents started walking away from the city. Only about twenty or so buildings remained standing, but they were damaged beyond repair and were about to fall. The people of the city fled, but many weren't lucky enough to make it to safety. A few people were still climbing out of rubble in an attempt to live to see another day. They looked up and a large object flew directly over their heads.

"You're just as bad as the damned Alliance was years ago in the colonies!" yelled Quatre as his serpent flew over the city toward the enemy Serpents. "What the?!", a few pilots were saying. Two serpents turned around, but only to have their heads of their suits sliced off by the heat shortels. He spun his suit and sliced off the arm of another that was carrying its double gatling gun. "They too destroyed people's homes that weren't involved!" he spat out again before slicing the legs of another suit off.

"Get that damned suit!" the commander yelled. Wind flew up behind the Serpent commander's mobile suit, and stabbed his beam sabre through the back of it. The sabre melted straight through the cockpit. Wind yanked the sabre to the right and it melted out the right side of the suit, before exploding in front of him.

"Wind!" Quatre yelled frantically, "don't kill them!" Before Quatre got his mind back on track, a serpent flew up behind him and shots its dual gatling at him. The shots ripped through he left shoulder of his suit. The shoulders beam sabre exploded, disabling the lower arm. When it powered down, the hands released their grip and dropped the heavy heat shortel. Quatre spun around and flew at the suit. He sliced the gun barrels off of the suit, before slicing the head off in a backhand motion.

"I'm sorry, Quatre, but it's the way my father taught me how to fight," Wind said. "He said to get the enemy as fast as you can efficiently," he started, "and destroying the cockpit, killing the pilot, is the easiest way." He felt sorry, but he did as he was told.

"It's ok Wind, I understand now why, but please, we fought hard to stop fighting and killing," Quatre said with his pacifistic passion coming back to the surface. "Please, try to only disarm them or disable their mobile suits," he pleaded with Zechs' son.

"I will Quatre, from now on," he replied to the strong pacifist. Quatre smiled greatly in his mobile suit, before flying off to disable another mobile suit. Wind and Solo too were slicing up the other serpent mobile suits. Solo was in hand-to-hand combat with about six serpents as they were surrounding him. He had his warblades ignited, and was stabbing and slashing with them barely connecting with the suits. He sliced off a few arms and even managed to get the legs of two suits, causing their massive hulks to drop to the ground.

"Only a 4 suits remaining, Quatre," Solo said as he approached another suit to the gundam pilot. This serpent wasn't out of missiles and was having a field day trying to target-and-fire at once at Solo as he flew at him. Solo was like a fly buzzing around. He dodged each of the pilot's shots, before getting close enough to fire the head-mounted laser cannons slicing off the arms of the suit. For good measures, he turned quickly igniting his beam scythe and sliced off the legs of the massive mobile suit, letting it topple to the ground with a great thud.

Wind threw out his left arm, letting the heat rod extend right through a mobile suit's chest section. He pulled it back and the suit fell, after losing power in the right leg and right arm. The quickly fired his vernias to fly straight up, avoiding the machine gun attack he picked up on radar from behind him. While boosting in the air, he flipped over and landed behind the mobile suit. With the beam sabre, he sliced off the serpent's booster back, letting it drop onto its legs from its hovering position. He then wrapped the heat rod around a leg, before yanking on it. The Leg gave way back and fell face-forward. He stabbed the beam sabre down into one of the shoulders and left it there, swirling it a bit making sure the missiles exploded. The suit smoked from the present explosion and the pilot managed to jump out of the cockpit.

Quatre was flying straight at the last serpent as it was firing its machine gun directly at him. A few rounds were soaked into the low-armor suit, but it still flew at him. Quatre's serpent stopped a sudden halt, landing on its feet, before he pushed off firing his boosters to send the suit flipping up in the air. The Serpent righted itself, before coming straight down on top of the enemy serpent. Quatre swung the heat shortel from the right side of the serpent's head down across the lower leg arm. The suit's left chest, head, and left arm fell off as the attacked melted straight through the simple metal.

"Phew," Quatre said, rubbing the sweat from his forehead, "it's all over now, but we were too late." The pilots scanned the now completely destroyed city. It lay in complete ruins. Wind and Solo were breathing hard and sweating badly after such an intense battle. "It's time we headed back," Quatre said.

"Yeah, once we get there, we can all head over to California. That's where my dad said they were going, to the New Edwards base where Heero and I built our gundams," Solo announced proudly. He thought about everything that had happened over the last many months. It was amazing, yet still shocking. He believed he was still living in a dream, but he truly knew he wasn't. He was also very happy to know that he could see Aria again. He smiled, before launching his suit into the air to follow his comrades.

* * *

The next day, Quatre, Solo, and Wind were traveling aboard a huge transport ship. Unlike the space transports, this one was a plane model designed for mobile suit storage. Quatre left his damaged suit back in the desert, which Ali said his men would still fix it for him, despite Quatre telling him it was not needed. Solo and Wind might need their suits more, and so they stored them aboard.

"It's an old relic from the One Year War," Quatre said, looking at the 'OZ' symbol that was hand-carved into the table that sat in front of them. "I heard this old transport was Treize' personal transport," he added. Solo began to think about that name, he knew he had heard it before. Then it hit him, he was the leader of OZ and staged the final war in space against the White Fang organization.

"We'll be there fairly soon, then we can get back to business on finishing off the Barton Foundation," Solo said, happy that he was returning home. He had been away for many days now. His mother had to be extremely worried about him.

Three hours later, the old OZ Transport landed on the runway at the New Edwards base. Heero Jr. knew the base well enough that he was able to turn on most of the working controls around the base to allow them to be able to store the transport in an underground hangar and get the radar and communication equipment re-operational. It had been around 15 or 16 years since most of the stuff in the old base was used.

Solo and Wind unloaded their gundams on the large truck transports and drove them down into the depths of the large base. Solo noted the smoke and fires of the missile room as he traveled back its length the elevator to go back up to the top of the base. Wind followed behind him. They had placed their Gundams in the open room where Heero and Solo first used their completed gundams.

The explosions and fire from the mobile doll construction room had destroyed the entire room. It was luck that the fires weren't strong enough to melt the walls of the room, or the facility would have burned down. The large walkway leading back to the elevator had a black film on it from the explosion of the Mk .82 warhead that was fired out of the base.

Everyone collected at the control tower of the base to start to establish a new plan to go after the remaining members of the Barton Foundation. They knew that his transport landed in Antarctica and that he had taken over the base, killing everyone that was stationed there. It was decided, rather quickly, that everyone gets some sleep until the next day. They were going to launch a full-scale, head-on battle. They were first going to fix the Wing Zero, of Heero. Solo and his father were going to go visit their family and Trowa tagged along after Solo mentioned that he told Aria and Catherine to go stay with his mother. And so it was, the pilots slept a bit easier that night, but not so comfortable knowing they had a big day ahead of them.

* * *

Max Barton was standing in the control tower of the Antarctica Base starring out onto the land of ice around them. A snowstorm had picked up and was swarming their little base with cold, white dust. He knew the snow wouldn't effect this base, because it was built to survive. He was interrupted as his new commander entered the room. "Mr. Barton, the Serpent Squads reported to us before they launched their attack on Luxembourg," he started to tell him, "and after their mission started, they were assaulted by 2 gundams and a modified serpent unit." The Barton shifted uneasy on his feet, then turned toward his officer.

"Did they complete their mission? Or did the suit fall into the wrong hands?" he asked him. "They didn't find the suit their sir, and they were all destroyed. But they did completely destroy the entire city before they were assaulted," he said, weary of what was to happen. "Hmm, that's odd," the Barton said. His eyes widened, "It's not there… I remember now, its in Brussels. It was built under the old Brussels' Presidential Palace!" he got to work gathering some troops to hurry and to retrieve his prize.

"I'll have it before they find, that's for sure. They can't… but if they have it, I'll have to take caution. It's the only suit that can hurt me!" he said, before retiring to his quarters for the evening. As he went to sleep, his night-squad was launching their Aires mobile suits and heading toward Brussels, Belgium.

Chapter 7: Explanations


End file.
